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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



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PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



TREATISE SPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR 
YOUNG MEN. 



, 



JOHN S. C. ABBOTT, 

author of 

'the mother at home," "the child at home," "-life of napoleon," 
u history of the french revolution," etc. 



i 



■ 



Oh how glorious to be conscious 
Of a growing power within, 

Stronger than the rallying forces 
Of a charged and marshal'd sin." 




NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS* 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 



N 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight 
hundred and sixty-one, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of 
New York. 

Copyright, 1889, by Susan Abbott Mead. 



The Library 



TO 



THE YOUNG MEN OF TEE UNITED STATES, 

WHO, WITH SUCH ENTHUSIASM, HAVE VOLUNTEERED FOE THE DEFENSE 
OF THEIR IMPERILED COUNTRY, THIS VOLUME IS 

BY THEIR FRIEND AND GRATEFUL FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN, 

JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. 



PREFACE, 



There are many young men, thoughtless 
upon the subject of religion, who can hardly 
be induced to read our standard works upon 
Christianity. These pages have been written 
with special reference to such persons, hoping 
to interest them in themes the most ennobling 
and sublime the human mind can conceive. 
Whether the attempt shall prove a success or 
a failure the result only can show. 

I have written mainly from my own expe- 
rience—from the solace which Christianity has 
afforded me in the battle of life, and which 
both history and biography instruct me it has 
afforded thousands of others, in various ages 
and in remote lands. 

There may be error in these pages, but her- 
esy there is none. Truly has Milton said, 



VI PREFACE. 



" Heresy is in the will and choice, professed- 
ly against Scripture. Error is against the will, 
in misunderstanding the Scripture after all sin- 
cere endeavors to understand it rightly. It is 
a human frailty to err, and no man is infallible 
here on earth." 

Therefore can I say with one of the ancients, 
"Err I may, but a heretic I will not be." If 
the views of Christianity here presented — views 
which I have urged from the pulpit for twen- 
ty-five years — be not essentially correct, so as to 
be a safe guide to Heaven, then has my preach- 
ing been vain, and my faith is also vain, and I 
am yet in my sins. 

John S. C. Abbott. 

Howe Street Chtjkch, 

New Haven, Conn. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 

The College Student. — Conversation in a Boat. — Eleono- 
ra: a poor Sinner. — The Battle of Life. — No Cross, no 
Crown. — Penance. — The Cross of Self-denial. — The Pray- 
er-meeting. — Christianity invites to Conflict, not Repose. 
— The Alarm at Lexington. — The Crusades. — Sublimity 
of the Christian Conflict Page 13 

CHAPTER II. 

WHY SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 

The Siberian Exile. — The Emigrant. — Departure for the 
Spirit -land. — The Testimony of Patriarchs. — Of Apos- 
tles.— Death of Sir Walter Scott.— Of Daniel Webster.— 
Of Talleyrand. — Remarkable Testimony of Napoleon. — 
The young Christian. — The mature Christian. — The dy- 
ing Christian. — The Pilgrims. — An angelic Embassy. 34 

CHAPTER III. 

HOW SHALL I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 

Moral Courage. — Soldiers of the Cross. — Family Prayer. — 
The Sea-captain. — Heroism of young Ladies. — Remark 
of John Randolph. — Success the Reward of Labor. — En- 
tire Consecration to Duty makes Duty pleasant. — Nature 
of the religious Life. — Seek the best Religion. — Frank- 
ness and Sincerity. — William Wirt.— William Wilber- 
force 56 



Vlll CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

WHAT ARE THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN? 

The glad Tidings. — The doomed Man pardoned. — Lonis 
XVI. and Malesherbes. — Evidence that One is a Chris- 
tian. — How is a Change of Heart effected? — God's Love. 
— How it operates. — The Ship-carpenter. — The Battle of 
Life. — The domestic Waterloo. — Constitutional Tempera- 
ments. — Keligion as a Source and Cause of Happiness. — 
Its beneficent Influence Page 76 

CHAPTER V. 

THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE WANTS OF THE 
WORLD. 

The Forms and Spirit which Religion assumes. — Compre- 
hensiveness of the Christian Scheme. — The Grandeur of 
Christianity. — The two Efforts for the Overthrow of Chris- 
tianity. — Persecution. — Corruption. — The Papacy. — The 
Duchess at Versailles. — Socrates ; his Religion ; his Pu- 
pils. — Humboldt. — The Christian Sailor-boy. — True No- 
bility 98 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE ENNOBLING INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The Christian Nobleman. — Great Diversities of human Con- 
dition. — Companionship with God. — The two Farmers. — 
Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night. — The Elevation which 
Consciousness of Possession gives. — Uncle Tom. — The In- 
heritance of the Christian. — Visions at Death. — Janeway. 
— The Martyr Stephen. — The true Spirit of Religion. — 
Importance of Doctrines; of Forms. — The Guilt of cor- 
rupting Christianity 120 



CONTENTS. IX 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Various and discordant Systems of Religion. — The Inward 
Witness. — Altamont. — Dr. Payson. — Inefficiency of Ar- 
gument. — Experimental Testimony. — The Hunger of the 
Soul. — Legend of Pontius Pilate. — Sublime Revelations 
of Christianity. — External Evidences unavailable for most 
Christians. — Nature of the experimental Evidence. — The 
most convincing Argument. — Hume. — Voltaire. — Byron. 
—Death-bed of Henry Clay ..Page 138 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE RESURRECTION. 

Revelation confirmed by the Analogies of Nature. — The 
Chrysalis. — Vegetation. — Views of the Ancients. — The 
Scene of Resurrection. — Beautiful Conception of Parnell. 
— The intermediate State. — Changes through which im- 
mortal Spirits may pass. — Union of Soul and Body in the 
future World. — Scriptural Announcement of Judgment. 
— The final Conflagration. — The new Earth to emerge 
from the Ruins. — Teachings of Geology, Chemistry, and 
Astronomy. — Phenomena of the Stars , 164: 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE CELESTIAL BODY. 

The Soul to occupy a Body in the future World. — Shadowy 
Conceptions. — Imperfection not essential to Materialism. 
— The celestial Body not a new Creation, but a Resurrec- 
tion. — Change in the Bodies of the Living. — Philosoph- 
ical Objections. — Greatness of the Change at the Resur- 
rection. — Beauty of the human Frame. — Celestial Jour- 
neying. — Magnitude of the Universe. — Employments in 
Heaven.— Cheering Views 185 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER X. 

HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 

The Cravings of the Soul.— Adam in Eden. — Poetic De- 
scription. — The new Eden. — The Nature of Heaven's En- 
joyments. — Peculiarity of the Divine Existence. — Heaven 
as a City. — Heaven a Scene of rural Beauty. — The Dis- 
coveries of modern Astronomy. — Jupiter. — The Sun. — 
Star -clusters. — Immensity of God's Works. — Philosoph- 
ical Testimony. — Scripture Testimony Page 205 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The Doctrines of Christianity. — Evidence of their Reason- 
ableness. — The Duties Christianity enjoins. — The Meas- 
ures Christianity adopts. — The Christian Ministry. — The 
Church. — Ordinances of Christianity. — The Sabbath. — 
Baptism. — The Lord's Supper. — The Effects of Christian- 
ity. — Death of the Unbeliever. — Testimony of ancient 
Greeks. — The two Death-bed Scenes 222 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 

External Evidences of Christianity. — Edom in its Power. — 
Prophetic Denunciations. — Utter Desolation. — Testimony 
of Yolney. — Burckhardt and Seetzen. — Grandeur of the 
Ruins. — Petra. — Testimony of Laborde. — The Traveler 
Stephens. — Sublimity of Solitude and Decay. — Scenes in 
Ancient Petra. — Appeal to the Reader 244 

CHAPTER XIII. 

OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 

The Babylonish Invasion. — The Captives. — Daniel. — The 
first Trial. — The Dream of Nebuchadnezzar. — Moral 



CONTENTS. XI 



Courage of Daniel. — Belshazzar's Eevel. — Daniel's Hero- 
ism. — Character of Daniel. — Noah. — Age of the World 
at his Birth. — His Trials. — His wonderful Firmness. — 
State of the World. — The Deluge. — New Temptations. — 
Noah's Fall. — Lessons taught. — Veracity of the Bible. — 
Probation. — Future Judgment Page 263 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NEW LIFE. 

Andrew Jackson. — His Excuses.— Confession to his Pastor. 
— The Protracted Meeting. — Conviction of Sin. — Ashamed 
of Jesus. — Conversion. — Its Results. — Louis Philippe. — 
Moral Training. — Madame de Genlis. — The Journal of 
Louis Philippe. — Practical Directions. — Conclusion.. 287 



PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER L 

WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 

The College Student. — Conversation in a Boat. — Eleono- 
ra: a poor Sinner. — The Battle of Life. — No Cross, no 
Crown. — Penance. — The Cross of Self-denial. — The Pray- 
er-meeting. — Christianity invites to Conflict, not Eepose. 
— The Alarm at Lexington. — The Crusades. — Sublimity 
of the Christian Conflict. 

Several young men were one evening sit- 
ting around the fire in a college room, when 
the conversation turned upon the subject of re- 
ligion. One of the young men said, perhaps 
with unintentional exaggeration, but with sin- 
cerity, 

" If I could, by having my right arm cut off, 
be sure that I were a Christian, I would sub- 
mit to the operation unhesitatingly. I have 
often tried to be a Christian, but in vain. I 
shall not try any more." 

Similar remarks are made every day. There 
are thousands who think that they really de- 



14 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

sire to become Christians, but that there is some 
insuperable obstacle in the way. They assume 
— still with inward misgivings that it is not 
true— that they wish to become reconciled to 
God, but that God is not willing to become rec- 
onciled to them. 

There are, however, exceptions. There are 
many young men of intelligence and of good 
reputation who will frankly avow that they do 
not wish to be Christians. The following scene, 
which actually occurred, as described, some 
years ago, will illustrate this state of mind. 

Two young men who had just completed 
their collegiate education were sailing upon 
one of the most beautiful rivers of our coun- 
try. It was a bright day in June. Those gor- 
geous clouds, which the sailors call " Canadian 
horsemen," were advancing in squadrons from 
the northwest, and a gentle breeze pressed the 
sail and rippled the surface of the stream. One 
of these young men had just become, as he 
hoped, a Christian, and was anxious to induce 
his high-minded and talented companion to es- 
pouse the same cause. He, however, felt diffi- 
dent about introducing the subject, and was 
afraid that, by abruptness, he might offend the 
sensitive feelings of his associate, and thus ren- 
der religion repulsive. 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 15 

He endeavored, therefore, to approach, the 
theme gradually. As they leaned upon the 
stern of the boat, now talking, now musing, ad- 
miring the lovely scenery of the flowing river, 
wooded banks, and fleecy sky, the young Chris- 
tian, whom we will call Henry, said to his com- 
panion, whom we will call George, 

" How much like a ship that cloud looks off 
there upon our right ! It seems as though, if 
we could but get into it, we could have a far 
pleasanter sail up there in the sky than we are 
enjoying down here upon the earth." 

"Yes," George replied, "that would be a 
splendid balloon to float in, high above all the 
cities and mountains. What a magnificent 
prospect we could look down upon! The 
houses would dwindle into apparently little 
boxes, such as children play with. And the 
men, working in the fields and crowding the 
streets, would seem no larger than emmets." 

"And if we could only spread our sails," 
Henry continued, "and be wafted far away, 
floating beyond the sun, and coasting along the 
stars, which, like islands, are scattered through 
the immensities of space, what scenes of novel- 
ty and of sublimity would be opened before 
us!" 

Both were silent for a moment, and then 



16 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

George rejoined, "I have often thought how 
exciting* it must be when a whale-ship, in the 
Pacific, comes in sight of a strange island, one 
which perhaps has never before been visited 
by a white man. The luxuriance of tropical 
vegetation, the huts of the natives, the strange 
aspect of naked savages, and their manners and 
customs, so different from any which have been 
thought of before, must seem like the vision 
of a dream." 

"It must indeed be so," Henry rejoined. 
"And yet the scenes which will be opened be- 
fore us when we leave this world must be in- 
finitely more wonderful and sublime. I am 
never weary of looking up in the evening to 
the stars, those mansions of God, and wonder- 
ing what kind of worlds they are, what the as- 
pect and character of their inhabitants, and 
what the nature of their employments and 
pleasures. I believe that they are all happy 
worlds, like Eden, occupied by angel spirits, 
and that the Christian, after death, will be a 
welcome guest upon them all. "What a sub- 
lime thought it is that we shall have infinity to 
explore, and eternity to do it in !" 

" You are growing visionary, Henry," was 
the prompt reply of George. "We do not 
know much about any other world than this, 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 17 

or any other state of existence than that which 
we now enjoy. I think that we had better 
confine our thoughts to the practical scenes 
around us." 

" Surely," Henry replied, "we can not doubt 
that the Bible is true ; and that informs us that 
this life is merely a state in which we are to 
prepare for another and a nobler existence. 
If we love God, and become in character like 
God, as he has revealed himself to us in Jesus 
Christ, we shall be received to Heaven. Then 
we become God's sons and heirs, and, as such, 
the universe is our inheritance; then all these 
worlds which we see in the evening sky, and 
millions upon millions more which even the 
telescope has not revealed to us, will be just as 
much our home as we are at home in our own 
fathers' houses here on earth." 

Again there was a pause, which was not in- 
terrupted until George replied, in words utter- 
ed slowly and deliberately, " Well, it may be 
so, for aught I know, and it may not be so, for 
aught I know. We can not tell where we were 
one hundred years ago, and as little can we tell 
where we shall be one hundred years hence. 
We suddenly find ourselves existing in this 
world. We are soon to leave it to go I know 
not where ; perhaps to return to the same non- 
B 



18 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

existence from whence we came. The past, be- 
fore our birth, is all dark, and the future, after 
our death, is equally so.' 7 

" It does not appear so to me," Henry rejoin- 
ed. "We know that there is a God, for the 
universe could not exist without a maker. 
We know that we ought to love God, and do 
that which our conscience tells us to be right, 
and to refrain from doing that which conscience 
declares to be wrong. The Bible only urges 
us, by the most powerful of conceivable mo- 
tives, thus to live, doing every thing that is 
right and nothing that is wrong. It also shows 
us how, when we have done wrong, we can ob- 
tain forgiveness. Our own hearts assure us 
that such teachings must be true. And / am 
determined to try to live according to the in- 
structions of the Bible, to do every thing which 
I think will please God, and to do nothing 
which will be displeasing to him ; then, while 
I live, I shall have the joy of an approving con- 
science ; when I die I shall be cheered by the 
conviction that I have done every thing that I 
could to prepare for death, and in the spirit- 
land I believe that my heavenly Father will 
receive me, and make me as one of his angels." 

Again there was a long pause, during which 
there probably was a struggle in the mind of 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 19 

George between the consciousness of truth and 
the wicked disposition to live without God. It 
may have been the moment, in the soul's con- 
flict, when the destinies of that soul were set- 
tled forever. The silence at length was broken 
as George replied, in tones of deliberation and 
firmness, 

" Very well ; you may do as you choose. I 
have thought of this subject not a little ; and I 
have made up my mind that while I am in this 
world I will live for this world, and for this 
world alone. When I die, if I find that I am 
introduced to any other state of existence, I 
will do the best I can there." 

Here the conversation was dropped, and was 
never again resumed. The two young men 
soon separated, and went forth to encounter the 
temptations and the toils of life. After thirty 
years of conflict with disappointment and ad- 
versity, George, in a distant land, with no friend 
at his dying pillow, sank into the grave. Per- 
haps in those last sad hours he looked up in 
prayer to his heavenly Father, and sought that 
godliness which hath promise of the life that 
now is, as well as of that which is to come. 

This incident shows conclusively that there 
are some persons who have no wish to be 
Christians. They deliberately form the resolve 



20 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

to let that question alone. Of such there is 
but little hope. It is probable, however, that 
the great majority of those who will read this 
book often express the desire to make their 
peace with God, and often think that they do 
earnestly wish to be the disciples of the Sav- 
ior. 

What, then, is it to be a Christian ? It is to 
try to please God in every thing, according to 
the teachings of the Bible and of one's con- 
science ; to repent of all the wrong we have 
done, and to ask God's forgiveness for the sake 
of Christ, who has died for us. Christianity is 
the same in all hearts. Persons may differ in 
education, in intelligence, in wealth, in rank, in 
the forms and ceremonies to which they are ac- 
customed, but in this all Christians are alike ; 
they pray for forgiveness in the name of Jesus, 
and try to please God in every thing. Some- 
times they may think that they are doing right 
when they are doing wrong; but God will read- 
ily forgive all such sins of ignorance, for it is 
written, "He knoweth our frame, he remem- 
bereth that we are dust." 

Even in the darkest ages of the world we 
find many most attractive examples of genuine 
piety. Through cloistered glooms and the ac- 
cumulated moss of superstitions, we see beam- 



BEING A CHRISTIAN". 21 

ing forth, in many a disciple the gentle, loving, 
devoted spirit of Christ. 

About one hundred and sixty years ago 
there was in the heart of Germany a young 
duchess, Eleonora, residing in the court of her 
father, Philip, the elector palatine. In child- 
hood she became a Christian — an earnest and 
warm-hearted Christian, longing for the love 
of God, and eager to make any sacrifice and to 
practice any self-denial which she thought 
would prove acceptable to him. Guided by 
the teachings of her spiritual instructors, who, 
though doubtless sincere, had ingrafted upon 
the precepts of the Bible the traditions and su- 
perstitions of that dark age, she was taught to 
deprive herself of almost every innocent grati- 
fication, and to practice upon her fragile frame 
all the severities of an anchorite. Celibacy 
was especially commended to her as a virtue 
peculiarly grateful to God, and she consequent- 
ly declined all solicitations for her hand. 

Leopold, the widowed Emperor of Germany, 
sent a magnificent retinue to the palace of the 
grand elector, and solicited Eleonora for his 
bride. It was the most brilliant match Europe 
could furnish. But Eleonora, notwithstanding 
all the importunities of her parents, rejected 
the proffered crown. As the emperor urged 



22 PEACTICAL CHEISTIANITY. 

his plea, the conscientious maiden, that she 
might render herself personally unattractive to 
him, neglected her dress, and exposed herself 
unbonneted to the sun and the wind. She thus 
succeeded in repelling his suit, and the emper- 
or married Claudia of the Tyrol. 

The elector palatine was one of the most 
powerful of the minor princes of Europe, and 
his court, in gayety and splendor, rivaled even 
that of the emperor. Eleonora was compelled 
to be a prominent actor in the gorgeous saloons 
of her father's palace, and to mingle with the 
festive throng in all their pageants of pleasure. 

But her heart was elsewhere. Several hours 
every day were sacredly devoted to prayer and 
religious reading. She kept a minute journal, 
in which she scrupulously recorded and con- 
demned her failings. She visited the sick in 
lowly cottages, and with her own hands per- 
formed the most self-denying duties required 
at the bedside of pain and death. 

After the lapse of three years' Claudia died, 
and again the widowed emperor sought the 
hand of Eleonora. Her spiritual advisers now 
urged that it was her duty to accept the impe- 
rial alliance, since upon the throne she could 
render herself so useful in extending the influ- 
ence of the Church. Promptly she yielded to 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 23 

the voice of duty, and, charioted in splendor, 
was conveyed a bride to Vienna. But her 
Christian character survived this fearful ordeal, 
and remained unchanged. She carried the 
penance and self-sacrifice of the cloister into 
the voluptuousness of the palace. 

The imperial table was loaded with every 
luxury ; but Eleonora, the empress, drank only 
cold water, and ate of fare as humble as could 
be found in any peasant's hut. On occasions 
of state it was needful that she should be dress- 
ed in embroidered robes of purple and of gold. 
But, to prevent any possibility of the risings of 
pride, her dress and jewelry were so arranged, 
with sharp brads pricking the flesh, that she 
was kept in a state of constant suffering. Thus 
she endeavored, while discharging, with the ut- 
most fidelity, all the duties of a wife and an 
empress, to be ever reminded that life is but 
probation. These mistaken austerities, which 
were caused by the darkness of the age in which 
she lived, only show how sincere and unre- 
served was her consecration to God, The pure 
gold shines lustrous through the dross com- 
mingled with it. 

When Eleonora attended the Opera with the 
emperor, which she frequently was constrained 
to do, she took with her the Psalms of David, 



24 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

bound to resemble the books of the perform- 
ance, and thus unostentatiously endeavored to 
shield her mind from the profane and indeli- 
cate allusions with which the operas of those 
days were filled, and from which, as yet, they 
are by no means purified. 

For the benefit of her subjects, she translated 
the Psalms intcs German verse, and also trans- 
lated into German several other books of a de- 
votional character. Often she was seen with 
packages of garments and baskets of food en- 
tering the cottages of the poor peasantry around 
her country palace, ministering, like an angel 
of mercy, to all their wants. 

At length her husband was taken sick, and 
lingered through severe pangs on his dying 
bed. Eleonora watched at his pillow with all 
the assiduity of a Sister of Charity. She hard- 
ly abandoned her post for a moment by day 
or by night. To all his wants she administer- 
ed with her own hands, and at last closed his 
eyes as he slept in death. She survived her 
husband fifteen years, devoting herself with un- 
tiring self-sacrifice through all this period per- 
sonally to the instruction of the ignorant, to 
nursing the sick, to feeding and clothing the 
poor. All possible luxury she discarded, and 
endeavored, as closely as possible, to imitate 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 25 

her Savior, who had not where to lay his head. 
Her death was like the slumber of a child who 
sobs itself asleep on its mother's bosom. At 
her express request her funeral was unattend- 
ed with any display; and she directed that 
there should be inscribed upon her tombstone 
simply the words 

ELEONORA : 

A POOR SINNER. 

The date only was added: Died January 17, 
1770. 

This is the true spirit of religion, though 
there be blended with it some of the imperfec- 
tions which pertain to our frail nature. But 
God, who, like as a father pitieth his children, 
pitieth them that fear him, assures us that " He 
knoweth our frame, that he remembereth that 
we are dust." This spirit, modified by outward 
circumstances, is essentially, in all cases, the 
spirit of the Christian, and this is the nature of 
the Christian conflict. 

Every man is conscious, from his personal 
observation and his own experience, that life 
is a battle-field. We see the indications of this 
conflict in our neighbors. Some are growing 
better. Their opinions upon all subjects are 
becoming more healthy. They are forsaking 
bad associates and influences for good ones. 



26 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

We know that in their bosoms there is a double 
struggle, first against their own inward propen- 
sities, flesh warring against the spirit, and, sec- 
ondly, the external struggle against compan- 
ionship and habits. The ties which bind a man 
to his associates, his political partizanship, his 
habits of life, are often fearfully strong. It re- 
quires a struggle to sever these ties, and often 
great is the victory when it is accomplished. 

There is a rich reward offered in this life, and 
a still richer reward in the life to come, to all 
who will contend manfully for that which is 
right and true. And there is ignominy in the 
desire to secure the reward of the victory with- 
out sharing the peril of the battle. No man 
would deem it honorable, on the field of earth- 
ly conflict, to feign sickness, to hide in his'tent, 
to shelter himself from all danger while the 
battle raged, and then, so soon as the struggle 
is terminated, to steal from his hiding-place 
and claim his share of the rewards of a victory 
achieved entirely by the energies of others. 

And can it then be honorable, in this great 
moral conflict, which is now shaking the world 
to its foundations — a conflict which requires 
the highest display of that moral courage, which 
is an infinitely more rare and noble virtue than 
physical courage — can it be honorable for one 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 27 

to refuse to take his share in the conflict, and 
yet be eager to grasp the rewards of the Chris- 
tian victory — rewards which are the appropri- 
ate allotments of true and faithful soldiers of 
the Cross ? 

" Sure I must fight if I would reign." 

When a man says that he will be a Chris- 
tian, but that he will be one so secretly that no 
one will suspect it ; that he will not openly ac- 
knowledge the Savior ; that he will not take 
his position in the ranks where Christ's disci- 
ples stand, beneath the banner of the Cross, 
swept by the artillery of a hostile world, but 
that he will keep far from danger, and follow 
the army at a distance, so as to be ready to rush 
in after the battle is ended, and claim a share 
of the victory — there is, I say, in this a some- 
thing which every mind of honorable instincts 
will declare to be ignoble. 

A man of unusually energetic character was 
on his dying bed. From childhood he had en- 
joyed religious privileges, and yet had persist- 
ently rejected the Savior, at times with pre- 
tended skepticism. In the darkened chamber 
of death he was left companionless and com- 
fortless. There was nothing in the past for 
him to reflect upon with pleasure, and the fu- 



28 PEACTICAL CHKISTIANITY. 

ture was all gloom. His pastor called upon 
him and entreated him, even in this last, elev- 
enth hour, to take refuge in the Savior. The 
dying man fixed his eyes upon his pastor and 
said, in words which Milton might well have 
put into the lips of some fallen son of the morn- 
ing, 

"No; it seems too contemptibly mean. 
When I might have been useful as a Christian, 
I would not be one. Now that I can do noth- 
ing, and am just going into eternity, to go to 
Christ merely to be saved seems too contempti- 
bly mean." 

There is a cross which every one who would 
be a Christian must take up. It is never the 
cross of self-imposed suffering, but the cross of 
patient submission or active duty. Papal Eome 
has imposed penances, pilgrimages, cloistered 
glooms, seclusion, mortifications of the flesh, 
flagellations, and has thus endeavored to soothe 
the cry of conscience. These self-inflicted tor- 
tures, doubtless, in many cases in the darker 
ages of the world, have been well intended, but 
they find no warrant in Scripture, and are ab- 
horrent to reason. 

The Flagellants of the Papal Church scourge 
themselves with keen cutting lashes until the 
blood drips from their shoulders ; but this is a 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 29 

cross man has imposed, not God. The cross 
which Christ enjoins us to take up is the cross 
of self-denial for the accomplishment of good. 

The young man who has long lived without 
God, who has become intimately associated with 
irreligious companions, often finds that great 
self-denial is necessary to break away from 
those associates and to choose Christian friends. 
This, then, is the cross he must take up. 

It requires no little self-sacrifice for him to 
appear before the Church and ask for admis- 
sion ; to relate his Christian experience, in de- 
scribing those dealings with him by which God 
has led him to the Savior ; and then, before the 
congregation, to make public profession of his 
faith in Christ, confessing that he is a sinner, 
that he is penitent for sin, and that he will en- 
deavor henceforth to live a Christian life. This 
is the cross he must take up, alike useful to 
himself and important in its influence upon 
others. 

He attends a prayer-meeting. Perhaps not 
a few of his former companions are present to 
see if he will dare to pray before them, to speak 
as freely for Christ and religion as he has been 
accustomed to speak on other themes. It re- 
quires no little moral courage for him to be 
true to duty in such a presence. And yet a 



30 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

few words from his lips, though uttered with a 
stammering tongue ; a few petitions of prayer, 
though spoken in a voice choked and almost 
inaudible with emotion, will have more poten- 
cy upon those hearts than even the most elo- 
quent preaching of a Paul or an Apollos. This 
is the cross he must take up. Is not the rea- 
son manifest ? It has been mainly by such in- 
fluences that, through all time, the triumphs of 
Christianity have been achieved. 

What a trial must it have been for Peter, 
the uneducated fisherman, to stand before all 
the learned men of ancient days, Eomans, 
Greeks, and Jews, urging the claims of a relig- 
ion which most of them regarded with con- 
tempt. What a fearful trial of moral courage 
was Paul exposed to when, abandoning his old 
associates, among whom he had been a ring- 
leader, he turned to men whom they regarded 
as ignorant and fanatical, and in market-places, 
in synagogues, in courts of justice, plead that 
cause which to the Jew was a stumbling-block, 
and to the Greek foolishness ! Yet this was 
the cross he was to lift. Manfully he took it up. 

Though you can hardly find two individuals 
of similar personal history, still the spiritual 
cross we are all to bear is essentially the same. 
When, in the morning of our Eevolution, the 



BEING A CHRISTIAN. 31 

church bells of Lexington, and Concord, and 
Cambridge were ringing the alarm, and cour- 
iers were galloping from post to post with the 
tidings that the invading army were on the 
march, the farmer abandoned the plow in the 
furrow, the mechanic threw aside his tools, the 
shopkeeper barred door and windows, the stu- 
dent dropped his books, and with one spirit 
they all rushed to the unfurled banner of their 
country's freedom. The spirit was the same, 
the self-denial essentially the same in one and 
all; and yet, perhaps, in no two cases were 
the external circumstances similar. 

So, in espousing the cause of Christ, the old 
man, the young man, and the child, the rich 
and those not rich, the influential and those of 
but little influence, the mother and the maid- 
en — all, all alike, must enter the Church of 
Christ ready to do any thing, every thing which 
may advance his cause. Eeligion is not a loll- 
ing-chair, with downy cushion and smoothly- 
adjusted rockers, in which one may recline and 
slumber. It is rather armor, strong armor of 
steel, with helmet, and cuirass, and buckler, 
with which one is to go out into the battle of 
life, the battle with inbred sin, the battle to win 
a lost world to holiness. This warfare can nev- 
er cease till life shall cease. He who under- 



32 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

standingly enlists under this banner says to 
himself, 

"I have done at length with dreaming ; 
Henceforth, oh thou soul of mine, 
Thou must gird on sword and gauntlet, 
Waging warfare most divine. 

Life is struggle, conflict, victory, 

Wherefore should I slumber on, 
With my forces all unmarshal'd, 

With my weapons all undrawn?" 

The Crusaders, in their attempt to win back 
the Holy Land by the energies of the sword, 
ever marched beneath the banner of the Cross. 
Every man in that unnumbered host looked 
with pride, and almost with adoration, upon 
those silken folds emblazoned with the emblem 
of his faith, and inscribed with the words, "In 
hoc vinces," by this thou shalt conquer. This 
banner was ever his glory. It floated over ev- 
ery turret and battlement which he held. It 
was unfurled at every encampment. It led the 
advance in every onset ; and in the hour of 
disaster and retreat, the broken, bleeding le- 
gions rallied around it as a treasure never to 
be relinquished but with life. It is recorded 
of a renowned standard-bearer of those days, 
Edward of Almeyda, that, having first lost his 
right arm and then his left, he grasped the flag 
with his teeth, and did not relax his gripe un- 



BEING- A CHRISTIAN. 33 

til the cimeter of the foe cleft his head from 
crown to chin. 

This should be the spirit of the Christian, 
this courage, heroism, endurance. Never be 
ashamed to acknowledge, defend, advocate your 
cause. Take up your, banner and march be- 
neath it, glorying in the noblest cause in which 
men or angels ever engaged. There have been 
many great battles fought upon this globe, re- 
nowned in history as deciding the destinies of 
empires. But these have all been as the play 
of children compared with that great moral 
battle now raging over this wide world. The 
arch enemy of mankind, all lost spirits, all god- 
less men, are on one side; our heavenly Fa- 
ther, all the angels of heaven, and all good men 
are on the other. The final victory is a ques- 
tion only as to time. The banner of the Cross 
shall yet float upon every mountain and over 
every valley. The victorious armies of the 
Savior, earth being redeemed from sin and 
woe, shall yet make all skies resound with 
their acclaim. Would you share in this tri- 
umph, you must share in the conflict. No cross, 
no crown. 

C 



34 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER II. 

WHY SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 

The Siberian Exile. — The Emigrant. — Departure for the 
Spirit -land. — The Testimony of Patriarchs. — Of Apos- 
tles.— Death of Sir Walter Scott.— Of Daniel Webster.— 
Of Talleyrand. — Remarkable Testimony of Napoleon. — 
The young Christian. — The mature Christian. — The dy- 
ing Christian. — The Pilgrims. — An angelic Embassy. 

There are many who assume that it is be- 
neath the dignity of a strong-minded, intelli- 
gent man to devote himself to religious thought. 
They cherish the feeling that solicitude respect- 
ing a future world, and anxiety for the salva- 
tion of the soul, are irrational and fanatical. 
Let us look at this. 

Imperial despotism consigns a family from 
sunny climes to Siberian exile — to the storms 
and ices of almost an eternal winter. Is it ir- 
rational for the husband and father to inquire, 
' ' What doom awaits me and mine in that frozen 
zone, which we are never to leave until our 
bodies are buried beneath its drifting snows?" 

The peasant from the banks of the Danube 
or the castled Rhine gathers his household 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 35 

around him to emigrate to a new world. In 
that distant home boundless prairies may sweep 
around him, or gigantic forests overshadow 
him with their gloom. Wild beasts may rage 
through his inclosures, or the savage bury the 
tomahawk in his brain. He leaves his cot in 
father-land to return to it no more forever. 
After traversing leagues of stormy ocean, and 
plunging hundreds of miles into the interior of 
an almost unexplored continent, he is to rear 
his cabin, and there struggle against life's 
stormy doom, till death shall summon him to 
the world of spirits. 

And is it irrational for him to make all the 
preparation he can for this sojourn, though it 
be but temporary, in a new land ? 

Every man is soon to be an exile from his 
earthly abode. Every man is soon to emigrate 
from all the scenes, associations, friends of this 
his childhood's home, where he can only pass 
the briefest morning of his existence. You, 
reader, are to go far beyond planets, sun, stars, 
which even telescopic power has not revealed, 
to that central court where God sits enthroned, 
where the peerage of his empire are gathered, 
and where the New Jerusalem towers sublime, 
with its pavements of pearl and gates of gold. 

There every one must go, no one can tell 



36 PK ACTIO AL CHRISTIANITY. 

how soon; perhaps next year or this, to-mor- 
row or to-day. There you, reader, must go to 
await your trial and hear your doom. And 
we must not forget that God's empire has its 
prison as well as its palace — its realms of de- 
spair as well as its fields of bliss. In the world 
beyond the grave revelation gives us dim 
though appalling visions of lost spirits — Satan 
and his angels, who, reserved in chains under 
darkness, 

1 i Converse with everlasting groans, 
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved, ages of hopeless end," 

as well as visions of the spirits of the just made 
perfect, who " mount exultant on triumphant 
wing," and cause heaven's arches to resound 
with their songs of bliss. There you must go, 
reader, to dwell in the one world or the other, 
to be an angel or a fiend, and not for a few 
years only, but forever and forever. 

Shall the exile be anxious to foresee his fate 
amid Siberian snows? Shall the emigrant, 
with wise foresight, provide for his Atlantic 
voyage, his inland journey, and for the perils 
of the frontier, where, after a few days, the 
prairie wind shall sigh over his grave ? And 
shall not the child of immortality, who is sure- 
ly destined to grope through death's dark val- 
ley, to be roused by the resurrection trump, to 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 37 

stand at God's bar, to hear the sentence wel- 
come, or the doom depart — shall he alone be un- 
concerned, and say that it is fanatical for a man 
to prepare to meet his God ? 

The wisest, bravest, best men earth has ever 
known have ever testified to the reasonableness 
of this solicitude. Shall we appeal to those 
patriarchs and prophets whose names, echoing 
through the halls of history, have survived all 
time's ravages ? Empires, dynasties, busy gen- 
erations have gone down to oblivion, but these 
great names grow more lustrous as the ages 
roll on. Noah testifies to us from his ark, 
surging on a shoreless sea ; Abraham responds 
from Mount Moriah, with the sacrificial knife 
in his hand, and his son bound before him. 
Moses has inscribed his testimony upon every 
milestone of his pilgrimage, upon the tablets 
of the law, and upon that Pisgah's height from 
whence God took him. Elijah from his chariot 
of fire, and Enoch from his ascension clouds, 
shout back to earth their emphatic answer; and 
Daniel's reply is heard from the lion's den. 

The apostles of our Savior, how earnest their 
utterance ! Their eyes were ever turned to 
the celestial world ; their ears were ever list- 
ening for angel voices. In trouble's most tem- 
pestuous days, in darkest nights of sorrow, in 



38 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

deepest dungeons, and under lacerating stripes, 
anticipations of their heavenly home inspired 
and cheered them. 

Who have been the truly great and good 
men of modern times — men who, in nobility of 
nature, command the homage of human hearts, 
and who have left behind them the impress of 
good deeds ? Howard, the philanthropist ; Sir 
Matthew Hale, the jurist; Milton, the poet; Wil- 
berforce, the statesman : such are the men 
whose memory the world will not permit to 
die. These men, gigantic in their several at- 
tainments, were nerved to their daily toil by 
faith in the world to come. Look into the rec- 
ords of past history, and you shall hardly find 
a name embalmed in the affections of mankind 
which witnesseth not to the reasonableness of 
solicitude for the soul's salvation. 

Through all time God's chosen children have 
lived as strangers and pilgrims upon earth. 
They were journeying ever to a land far away. 
Though often world-weary, wayworn, foot-sore, 
and covered with the dust of travel, still they 
struggled hopefully on, tottering beneath their 
burdens, through sickness and sufferings, till 
one by one they entered the heavenly gates. 

Several years ago, Sir Walter Scott, who had 
charmed the world with his genius, was on a 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 39 

dying bed. He had passed a troubled night in 
delirious slumber. As the morning sun shone 
into his chamber he awoke but to die. Every 
trace of delirium had disappeared, and his mind 
was unclouded. Eaising his dying eye, and 
fixing it upon his son-in-law Lockhart, who sat 
by his bedside, he said, 

" My dear son, I may have but a moment to 
speak to you. Be a good man ; be virtuous, 
be religious. Be a good man," he repeated, 
with most solemn, emphasis ; " nothing else will 
give you any comfort when called to lie here." 

Was Walter Scott a weak enthusiast? Is 
not this striking testimony? Will you not 
feel, reader, as he felt, when you come to die ? 

Daniel Webster, a few years ago, was reclin- 
ing upon the pillow of death. His voice, en- 
trancing the senate, had not only reverberated 
through our whole land, but, sweeping the At- 
lantic, had echoed along the mountains and 
through the valleys of the Old World. It was 
the hour of midnight, and no sound disturbed 
the silence of the dying chamber save the mur- 
mur of the wave, as it broke a few rods from 
the window upon the beach at Marshfield. 
The great statesman was 'dying. His earthly 
career was terminated. His spirit was just 
ready to wing its flight to that distant world 



40 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

from whence it could never return. What are 
the thoughts which in this hour are struggling 
in his capacious mind ? Hark ! he speaks. 
Listen to those tones of death, in their almost 
supernatural solemnity : 

"The pomp of heraldry, the pride of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Alike await the inevitable hour ; 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

Again there is silence as of the tomb, and no 
penetration but that of God can scan the pon- 
derings of the dying man. But hark! again he 
speaks, and in tones of still intenser emphasis. 

" Show pity, Lord. O Lord, forgive ; 
Let a repenting rebel live. 
Are not thy mercies large and free ? 
May not a sinner trust in thee?" 

Do not these midnight, dying utterances re- 
veal the deep solicitude of the soul? Never 
was more decisive testimony given than was 
uttered by this great statesman upon his dying 
bed of the emptiness of all pursuits but those 
which guide to heaven. " What shadows we 
are, and what shadows we pursue !" is the voice 
ever spoken when one stands at death's door.* 

* The writer has received these facts from a friend who 
was with the dying statesman the last four days and nights 
of his life. 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 41 

Very touching was the dying testimony of 
Prince Talleyrand. Europe has perhaps pro- 
duced no other diplomatist more crafty or suc- 
cessful. He so managed as to retain his as- 
cendency in the republic, the empire, and the 
kingdom. He passed unharmed through rev- 
olutions and counter-revolutions, through the 
overturning and reconstruction of thrones, and 
yet was one of the most prominent of the act- 
ors in every stirring scene. Satiated with op- 
ulence and glory, and having long outlived his 
generation, at eighty -three years of age he was 
prostrate on a dying bed. 

As the spirit of the prince was slowly de- 
scending the dark valley, his thoughts retraced 
the stormy scenes of his stormy life — its con- 
flicts, ambitions, successes, and disappointments 
— and, in harmony with the melancholy souve- 
nirs of Solomon, declared all to be vanity and 
vexation of spirit. A taper burned dimly in the 
chamber. By the side of his bed there was a 
table, upon which was a paper and a pencil. 
He reached out his trembling hand, took the 
paper and pencil, and, in scarcely legible lines, 
inscribed the following as his dying testimony : 

" Behold eighty -three years passed away! 
What cares, what agitations, what anxieties, 
what ill-will, what sad complications ! and all 



42 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

without other result save great fatigue of body 
and of mind, and a profound sentiment of dis- 
couragement with regard to the future, and dis- 
gust with regard to the past." 

Surely such testimony is ample to show the 
folly of living for this world alone, and neglect- 
ing preparation for the world to come. Per- 
haps there has never been any testimony given 
upon this subject more impressive and more to 
the point than that uttered by Napoleon in the 
agony of Saint Helena. 

" Every thing in Christ," said Napoleon to 
General Bertrand, " astonishes me. His birth 
and the history of his life ; the profundity of 
his doctrines, which grapples the mightiest dif- 
ficulties, and which is of those difficulties the 
most admirable solution ; his Grospel, his ad- 
vent, his empire, his march across the ages and 
realms — every thing is for me a prodigy, which 
plunges me into a reverie from which I can not 
escape, a mystery which I can neither deny nor 
explain. 

" The nearer I approach, the more carefully I 
examine, every thing is above me ; every thing 
remains grand, of a grandeur which overpow- 
ers. His religion is a revelation from an intel- 
ligence which certainly is not that of man. 

"The Christian religion is neither ideology 



WHY BECOME A CHEISTIAN ? 43 

nor metaphysics, but a practical rule, which di- 
rects the actions of man, corrects him, counsels 
him, and assists him in all his conduct. The 
Bible contains a complete series of facts and 
of historical men, to explain time and eternity, 
such as no other religion has to offer. I search 
in vain in history to find the similar of Jesus 
Christ, or any thing which can approach the 
Gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor 
the ages, nor nature can offer me any thing 
with which I am able to compare it or explain 
it. The more I consider the Gospel, the more 
I am assured that there is nothing there which 
is not above the march of events, and above 
the human mind. 

"What happiness that book procures for 
those who believe it! Book unique, where 
the mind finds a moral beauty before unknown, 
and an idea of the Supreme superior even to 
that which the creation suggests. You speak 
of Csesar, of Alexander, of their conquests, and 
of the enthusiasm they enkindled in the hearts 
of their soldiers ; but can you conceive of a 
dead man making conquests with an army en- 
tirely devoted to his memory? My armies 
have forgotten me, even while living, as the 
Carthaginian army forgot Hannibal. 

" Can you conceive a Caesar the eternal em- 



44 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

peror of the Eoman senate, and from the depths 
of his mausoleum governing the empire, watch- 
ing over the destinies of Eome ? Such is the 
power of the Grod of the Christians. Such is 
the perpetual miracle of the progress of the 
faith and of the government of his Church. 
Nations pass away, thrones crumble, but the 
Church remains. What, then, is the power 
which has protected the Church, thus assailed 
by the furious billows of rage and the hostility 
of ages ? Where is the arm which for eight- 
een hundred years has protected the Church 
from so many storms which have threatened 
to ingulf it ? 

" Truth should embrace the universe. Such 
is Christianity ; the only religion which de- 
stroys sectional prejudice ; the only one which 
proclaims the unity and the absolute brother- 
hood of the whole human family ; the only one 
which is purely spiritual ; the only one which 
assigns to all, without distinction, for a true 
country the bosom of the Creator, God. Christ 
proved that he was the son of the Eternal by 
his disregard of time. All his doctrines sig- 
nify one only and the same thing, Eternity. 

" Moreover, in propounding mysteries, Christ 
is harmonious with Nature, which is profound- 
ly mysterious. From whence do I come? 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 45 

Whither do I go ? Who am I ? Human life 
is a mystery in its origin, its organization, and 
its end. In man and out of man, in Nature, 
every thing is mysterious. And can one wish 
that religion should not be mysterious ? The 
creation and the destiny of the world are an 
unfathomable abyss, as also is the creation and 
destiny of each individual. Christianity at 
least does not evade these great questions. It 
meets them boldly ; and its doctrines are a so- 
lution of them for every one who believes. 

" The Gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mys- 
terious efficacy; a warmth which penetrates 
and soothes the heart. One finds in medita- 
ting upon it that which one experiences in con- 
templating the heavens. The Gospel is not a 
book ; it is a living being, with an action, a 
power, which invades every thing which op- 
poses its extension. Behold it upon this table 
— this book surpassing all others" (here the em- 
peror solemnly placed his hand upon it). " I 
never omit to read it, and every day with the 
same pleasure. 

" Nowhere is there to be found such a series 
of beautiful ideas, admirable moral maxims, 
which defile like the battalions of a celestial 
army, and which produce in our soul the same 
emotion which one experiences in contempla- 



46 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

tingt lie infinite expanse of the skies, resplend- 
ent in a summer's night with all the brilliance 
of the stars. Not only is our mind absorbed, 
it is controlled, and the soul can never go 
astray with this book for its guide. Once mas- 
ter of our spirit, the faithful Gospel loves us. 
God even is our friend, our father, and truly 
our God. The mother has no greater care for 
the infant whom she nurses. 

" What a proof of the divinity of Christ ! 
With an empire so absolute, he has but one 
single end — the spiritual melioration of individ- 
uals, the purity of conscience, the union to that 
which is true, the holiness of the soul. He 
lights up the flame of love, which consumes 
self-love, which prevails over every other love. 
The founders of other religions never con- 
ceived of this mystical love, which is the es- 
sence of Christianity, and which is beautifully 
called charity. 

11 1 have so inspired multitudes that they 
would die for me. God forbid that I should 
form any comparison between the enthusiasm 
of the soldier and Christian charity, which are 
as unlike as their cause. But, after all, my 
presence was necessary ; the lightning of my 
eye, my voice, a word from me, then the sacred 
fire was kindled in their hearts. I do indeed 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 47 

possess the secret of this magical power which 
lifts the soul, but I could never impart it to 
any one. Now that I am at St. Helena, alone, 
chained upon this rock, who wins empires for 
me? Who are the courtiers of my misfortune? 
Where are my friends? Yes, two or three, 
whom your fidelity immortalizes ; you share, 
you console my exile." 

Here the voice of the emperor trembled with 
emotion, and for a moment he was silent. He 
then continued : 

" Yes, our life once shone with all the bril- 
liance of the diadem and the throne. But dis- 
asters came ; the gold gradually became dim. 
The ruin of misfortune and outrage, with which 
I am daily deluged, has effaced all the bright- 
ness. We are merely lead now, General Ber- 
trand, and soon I shall be in my grave. 

" Such is the fate of great men ! So it was 
with Caesar and Alexander. And I, too, am 
forgotten. And mark what is soon to become 
of me ! I die before my time, and my dead 
body, too, must return to the earth to become 
the food for worms. Behold the destiny, near 
at hand, of him who has been called the great 
Napoleon ! What an abyss between my deep 
misery and the eternal reign of Christ, which 
is proclaimed, loved, adored, and which is ex- 



48 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

tending all over the earth. ! Is this to die ? Is 
it not rather to live? The death of Christ! 
It is the death of God !" 

But a few days before his death, when help- 
less upon his dying bed, the emperor sent for 
the Abbe Vignali. A movable altar was placed 
at the bedside. All retired except the abbe. 
Napoleon then, in silence and solitude, received 
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. After the 
solemn ordinance, Count Montholon returned 
to the room. The tranquil tones of the em- 
peror's voice and the placid expression of his 
countenance indicated the serenity of his spirit. 
He conversed a few moments on religious sub- 
jects, and peacefully fell asleep. 

" Open the window, Marchand," said the 
emperor to his valet, as he awoke in the morn- 
ing ; " open it wide, that I may breathe the air, 
the good air which the good God has made." 

Such is the testimony which comes pouring 
in upon us, emphatic and profuse, that it is wise 
for man to prepare to meet his God. Turn 
where we may, we find this testimony corrobo- 
rated. Ask the young convert, who has but 
just enlisted under the banner of the Cross, 
what his experience is of serving Christ. An 
unwonted lustre beams in his eye. A hitherto 
inexperienced joy thrills his heart. His feet 



WHY BECOME A CHEISTIAN? 49 

are already upon the delectable mountains, and 
far off he espies the turrets and the pinnacles 
of the celestial city, radiant with eternal sun- 
shine. The plumage of angel pinions glitters 
in the air. The harmony of seraphic voices is 
wafted to him from choirs above. The inter- 
vening way seems short, and, though there are 
valleys to be descended and heights to be 
climbed, an assuring voice whispers to his 
heart, 

"Be strong and of a good courage; be not 
afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord thy 
God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." 

Shall we ask the aged Christian to give his 
testimony? He has borne the heat and bur- 
den of the day, and is drawing near his jour- 
ney's end. With a tremulous voice he will 
surely testify essentially as follows : 

I have seen my sunny days of youth and 
hope, when in the May-morning of life the 
flowers bloomed, and birds sang, and the sky 
was serene. Friends encircled me with their 
love. Competence was mine, and in a happy 
home I found all the joy earth can give. My 
Christian hopes gilded and magnified all this 
happiness. From my fireside here I could look 
forward to a still more favored home in heaven. 

But hours of darkness came. Cares, troubles, 
D 



50 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

losses, vast embarrassments in business oppress- 
ed my soul 'with, sorrowful days and sleepless 
nights. But oh ! what a solace did my Chris- 
tian hopes then afford me. My property was 
melting away, but that was only an earthly 
possession. I had a sure and a safe investment 
in heaven, which no financial crisis could reach. 
Death came to my dwelling. Hour after hour 
I watched at the bedside of loved ones about 
to be taken from me. The cheek became more 
pallid, the eye more dim, the frame more ema- 
ciate. It did seem as though my heart would 
break in those hours of overwhelming grief. 
But my Christian hopes sustained me, and took 
from death its sting, and from the grave its vic- 
tory. 

And when the funeral procession left my 
door, and when I stood by the side of the 
grave, and heard the sods falling upon the cof- 
fin, faith, as an angelic comforter, pointed me 
to those realms of glory to which the sainted 
one had gone. And now, when I think of my 
own death, so near, and of my speedy reunion 
with the loved and the lost in heaven, I would 
not renounce the solace which my Christian 
hopes afford for all the honors and all the op- 
ulence of ten thousand worlds. 

"Would you inquire of the dying Christian 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 51 

as to his testimony ? Go with me to his bed- 
side. The battle is fought, the race is run. 
The long, dark night of conflict is passing away, 
and the brightness of an unclouded eternity is 
dawning upon his soul. His pulse is slowly 
ebbing, his heart feebly beating, his spirit just 
on the wing for its happy home. Dying Chris- 
tian, what say you? Is it wise for the living 
to prepare to meet God ? 

That pallid cheek is again flushed ; that dim- 
med eye again becomes lustrous ; that faltering 
tongue is unloosed, as, clear, distinct, and full, 
it exclaims to the guardian angels hovering 
around, 

"Lend, lend your wings — I mount, I fly : 
Oh grave, where is thy victory? Oh death, where is thy 
sting?" 

"Oh, my sister! my sister!" wrote Dr. Pay- 
son, just before he breathed his last, "could 
you but know what awaits the Christian — 
could you only know so much as I know, you 
could not refrain from rejoicing, and even leap- 
ing for joy. Labors, trials, troubles would be 
nothing. You would rejoice in afflictions, and 
glory in tribulations, and, like Paul and Silas, 
sing God's praises in darkest nights and deep- 
est dungeons." 

"We have read of caravans of pilgrims who, 



52 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

after weeks and months of weary travel, ap- 
proach the Holy City. They have been drench- 
ed by storms, burned by blazing suns, choked 
with the dust of the desert, and pinched with 
hunger. Their shoes are worn out, their gar- 
ments soiled and tattered, their feet blistered, 
and their tottering limbs can hardly sustain 
their steps. Through sleepless nights, and 
through days of weakness and pain, ever 
waging fierce warfare against assailing foes, 
they have toiled painfully on, and are now 
near the end of their pilgrimage. 

The sun is just sinking behind the hills of 
Lebanon, and night will soon settle upon Pal- 
estine. The pilgrims ascend an eminence, and 
lo! Jerusalem is before them. Its turrets, 
towers, pinnacles, and domes all blaze in gold- 
en splendor, reflecting the rays of the setting 
sun. A scene of almost supernatural enthusi- 
asm ensues. 

" Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" is shouted from 
hot and blistered lips; " Jerusalem! Jerusa- 
lem !" is echoed through the long lines of the 
rear. The lame, the fainting, the dying, are 
animated with new life as they rush forward 
to catch a glimpse of that sacred city where 
the Savior bled and died. Tears gush from 
all eyes. Some, almost swooning with joy, 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 53 

cast themselves upon the ground and breathe 
a silent prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving. 
Some throw their arms into the air, and shout 
wildly, in the ecstasy of their rapture, " Halle- 
lujah! hallelujah!" All past fatigues, perils, 
sufferings are forgotten. Their pilgrimage is 
ended, their goal is gained. 

But oh! when the pilgrim of earth arrives 
within sight of the celestial city — a sight so 
brilliant that no mortal eye undazzled can look 
upon it — as he gazes upon the splendor of the 
metropolis of. God's empire, and listens to the 
music of its seraphic choirs, and knows that in 
that city the Savior has a mansion prepared 
for him, all in readiness and awaiting his ar- 
rival, where he shall rest in purity, and peace, 
and joy forever, can language tell his emo- 
tions? The tongue falters, and speech itself 
breaks down in the vain attempt to give utter- 
ance to such joys. 

But could we go one step farther, and ap- 
peal to the sainted ones who are already in 
heaven, how emphatic would be their testi- 
mony ! Faith reveals to us many such a band, 
glittering in angelic plumage, radiant with se- 
raphic beauty, going in and out at celestial 
mansions, and taking glorious pastime on the 
hills of Grod. Such a band appeared to the 



54 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

shepherds of Bethlehem, announcing the birth 
of our Savior. "Were heaven to commission 
one of its choirs of redeemed ones to earth, 
who can doubt as to the nature of the testi- 
mony they would render. 

We can see them, in imagination, winging 
their flight down from the empyrean on this 
embassage of love. Their wings rustle in the 
air, as, breathing celestial odors, and luminous 
with heaven's splendor, they hover above us. 
Then, in blending harmony, their voices burst 
into one of the songs of heaven. Their liquid 
notes, now melting away into the softest sym- 
phonies of love, and now soaring into the sub- 
limest hallelujahs of triumph, entrance every 
listening ear. Their song is of redeeming love, 
the Babe of Bethlehem, Grethsemane, Pilate's 
hall, and Calvary ; the Eesurrection, the As- 
cension, the eternal Advocacy. 

" These," they sing, "are they who came out 
of great tribulation, and have washed their 
robes and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb. They shall hunger no more, neither 
shall they thirst any more ; for the Lamb, 
which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed 
them, and shall lead them unto living fountains 
of waters ; and God shall wipe away all tears 
from their eyes." 



WHY BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 55 

Again their wings gleam in the midst of the 
glory which surrounds them, and, directing 
their flight toward their happy home, they dis- 
appear from our sight. Surely the testimony 
is complete and overwhelming that it is wise 
in this life to make preparation for the life 
which is to come. 



56 PBACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER III. 

HOW SHALL I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 

Moral Courage. — Soldiers of the Cross. — Family Prayer. — 
The Sea-captain. — Heroism of young Ladies. — Remark 
of John Randolph. — Success the Reward of Labor. — En- 
tire Consecration to Duty makes Duty pleasant. — Nature 
of the religious Life. — Seek the best Religion. — Frank- /. 
ness and Sincerity. — William Wirt. — William Wilber- 
force. 

The cheapest and most vulgar of all earthly 
virtues is physical courage. The streets of any 
city in Christendom may be raked, and, from 
the collection of its most debased and brutal 
population, we may, with sufficient training, 
form fierce soldiers, who will leap the ramparts 
of the Malakoff and the Eedan as regardless of 
shot and shell as if they were paper pellets. 

Moral courage is a very different virtue. A 
sailor-boy, as he leaves his parental home for 
the perils and temptations of the sea, has re- 
ceived from his mother a Bible, with the prom- 
ise that he will daily read it, with prayer. The 
forecastle of the ship is filled with the profane, 
the ribald, the scorners. Night comes, the first 



HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 57 

night of the sailor-boy on the deep. The god- 
less crew around him, with revelry and inebri- 
ation, are playing cards upon a chest. The 
sailor-boy, with the calm heroism of another 
prophet Daniel, takes out his Bible, reads a few 
verses, and then kneels by the side of his ham- 
mock and offers to God a short and silent 
prayer. There is first a look of astonishment, 
and then a wild burst of blasphemy and de- 
rision. 

This is moral courage. This is a battle 
which tries a man's soul. This is a test of 
character which decides the question whether 
the spirit be of celestial or of earthly mould. 
You can find ten thousand men with bull-dog 
recklessness of danger, where you can find one 
man with this Christian heroism, this virtue of 
seraphic fibre, this seal of heaven's nobility. 
This was the courage of Abdiel, as described 
by Milton, 

" Faithful found among the faithless, 
Faithful only he." 

This was the courage of Noah, as he built the 
ark, breasting the scorn of the world, billows 
far more formidable than the surges of the Del- 
uge. This was the courage of Lot, encounter- 
ing assaults of obloquy and derision more ap- 
palling than the fiery flood. 



58 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Though the soldier of the Cross formerly had 
occasion for the exercise of physical as well as 
moral courage, braving the terrors of the dun- 
geon, the lions' den, the scaffold, and the stake, 
now it is generally moral courage only which 
he is called to exercise. It is easy for any 
government, with money, to enlist one hundred 
thousand soldiers in three months, who will, 
fearless as wolves, rush through ditch, and over 
rampart, and up to the cannon's mouth on any 
field of blood. 

But when God sends His recruiting sergeants 
into the world to engage soldiers of the Cross, 
thousands are afraid to enlist. What do they 
fear? — that cavalry will trample them down? 
No ! That shells will blow them into the air, 
or canister and grape tear them limb from limb ? 
No ! Do they fear the toilsome march, the rain- 
drenched bivouac, the dreary hospital ? No ! 
They understand full well that Christ's serv- 
ice exposes them to none of these sufferings. 
What is it, then, they fear? It is opinion; 
nothing but opinion. Do you wish to test this ? 
If, then, you are a father of a family, and have 
never established a family altar, assemble your 
wife and children around you this night, and 
say to them, 

" I have lived too long without (rod, and can 



HOW TO BECOME A CHKISTIAN. 59 

do so no more. To-night I am determined to 
commence family prayer and a Christian life." 

Eead a few verses in the Bible, bow the knee, 
and implore God's forgiveness and blessing. 
There are many men who had rather lead a for- 
lorn hope than do this; so much cheaper is 
physical than moral courage. Many a man 
will dare to read the Bible and to pray if he is 
sure that no one will see him or hear him ; but 
he perhaps had almost rather die than to be 
detected upon his knees in prayer or with God's 
word in his hands. 

Are you a young man? Say frankly to 
your companions, "I am resolved henceforth 
to try to live a Christian life." Go to the 
prayer-meeting. Openly avow there your res- 
olution; ask others to join you in your heav- 
enward journey ; implore the prayers of Chris- • 
tians, and then pray yourself as well as you 
can, no matter how poorly it may be. No one 
will harm you, or even insult you. What do 
you fear ? 

There are many young men who could more 
easily be induced to head a charge upon Luck- 
now or Delhi than to perform this act of Chris- 
tian heroism. The writer well remembers the 
conflict he passed through ere he could offer 
his first prayer in public, a young man twenty 



60 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

years of age. A sea-captain, a bold, resolute 
man, who for years had braved all the storms 
of the ocean, said, 

" The hardest thing I ever did was to com- 
mence family prayer. I returned from church 
one Sabbath evening resolved that I would 
delay the duty no longer. For some time I 
walked up and down before my door, unable 
to summon courage to enter. At last I went 
in, half hoping that my family had retired. 
There sat my wife and daughters. The per- 
spiration started from every pore of my body. 
I took up the Bible, and said, with a trembling 
voice, that I felt that we must not live any lon- 
ger as a family without Grod. I then read a 
few verses, and in the most bewildering agita- 
tion offered the first prayer ever heard at my 
fireside. I thought that my daughters and my 
wife would despise me ; that they would say, 

" 4 What, such a man as you, such a sinner 
as you are, have prayers in your family !' 

"But my daughters came with their eyes 
full of tears, and, more affectionately than ever 
before, bade me good-night. My soul was full. 
I was so happy that I could not sleep." 

This is moral courage. Such its cross and 
its crown. 

There was a wealthy family residing in their 



HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 61 

home of luxury, who had long been living 
without God. In a season of special religious 
interest the two daughters became Christians. 
The father also had his attention aroused, and 
for several weeks was in a state of great anx- 
iety. His pale cheek, his silence, his air of 
dejection, proclaimed the struggle in his mind. 
Still he found no relief. He had not moral 
courage to commence family prayer. This 
was the one thing he lacked. The daughters 
watched the progress of their father with deep 
solicitude, and well understood the nature of 
the cross which he was unwilling to take up. 

It was a cold winter's evening. The fire 
burned brightly in the grate, and the wind 
moaned pensively as the hour for retiring ar- 
rived. The family sat at the fireside in si- 
lence ; the father struggling with those mys- 
terious fears which repel from duty, and the 
daughters fully conscious of the emotions 
which agitated his heart. At length one of 
the daughters, by previous concert with her 
sister, looked up and said, 

" Father, are you willing that sister and I 
should conduct family prayers to-night? 7 ' 

The father, astonished, bewildered, scarcely 
knowing what he said, replied, " Why yes, my 
child." 



62 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Her hand was already upon the Bible, and 
the Psalm selected : " The Lord is my shepherd ; 
I shall not want." Without a moment's delay 
she read the beautiful passage, and immediate- 
ly, both kneeling, the other sister, in tones al- 
most inaudible through the intensity of her feel- 
ings, implored God's blessing upon the house- 
hold. It was the first prayer in the family. 
It brought the father to a prompt decision, and 
thus, perhaps, opened to him the gates of 
Heaven. 

Maria Theresa was heroic in leading to the 
charge the bold barons of Hungary. Joan of 
Arc was heroic, driving the invading foe in 
wild rout before her banners. Madam Eoland 
was heroic, singing the songs of liberty as she 
ascended the scaffold. But more pure, lofty, 
and celestial than either of these acts of hero- 
ism was the moral courage displayed by these 
Christian maidens. Angels must have con- 
templated reverentially and lovingly the scene. 
And when father and daughters shall meet, 
with robe, and crown, and harp, in the realms 
of immortality, then shall be truly appreciated 
the grandeur of this Christian heroism. 

"From the days of John the Baptist until 
now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, 
and the violent taketh it by force." 



HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 63 

"I had read," said John Kandolph, "that 
text five hundred times before I had the slight- 
est conception of its true meaning — that no 
lukewarm seeker can ever become a real Chris- 
tian." How simple this truth! how forceful 
the utterance ! If you wish to be a Christian, 
you must make an effort. 

Nothing of value can be attained without ef- 
fort. Success is the result of toil. The farm- 
er, the mechanic, the scholar, the artist, must 
purchase success in their various callings at 
the price of self-sacrifice and persevering in- 
dustry. Newton weighs the planets, and pur- 
sues the comet in its eccentric path through 
abysses of space which no telescope can pene- 
trate. Is this genius alone ? No ; he says it 
is work, hard work, night and day, day and 
night. 

Webster speaks in the Senate, and his elo- 
quent words sway the minds of millions. 
Whence this power? Is it instinctive? No. 
" Whoever has worked hard," says Webster, 
"no man ever worked harder." 

One of the most eloquent passages in the 
English language is Lord Brougham's perora- 
tion in defense of Queen Caroline. As we read 
its impassioned flow, it seems as if it must have 
gushed unstudied and instinctive from the 



64 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

glowing heart ; but Lord Brougham, in a let- 
ter to Macaulay, says, 

"I composed the peroration of my speech 
for the queen after reading and repeating De- 
mosthenes for three or four weeks, and I com- 
posed it twenty times over at least." 

Eufus Choate delivers a eulogy upon Daniel 
Webster at Dartmouth College. It is regard- 
ed as one of the most brilliant efforts of hu- 
man intellect. It is read with equal admira- 
tion on both sides of the Atlantic. Was this 
the result of accident — a sudden flash of in- 
spiration ? No ; every moment of leisure he 
could secure for a whole year was devoted to 
that labor. A choice library of ten thousand 
volumes was ransacked for suggestive imagery 
and thought ; and all this effort was made with 
a mind which had been disciplined with the 
most incessant and intense application for the 
third of a century. 

It is by toil, toil, toil, that the mechanic, who 
commences with hammering stone, closes his 
career by chiseling statuary which enchants the 
world. It is not the lounger in the streets of 
Florence and Eome whose creations attain an 
earthly immortality. Praxiteles and Phidias, 
Powers and Crawford, are men who anticipated 
the dawning of the sun, and who grew pale as 



HOW TO BECOME A CHEISTIAN. 65 

the midnight torch glimmered over their mar- 
ble blocks. 

Who are the mechanics who rise from ap- 
prenticeship to be master-builders ? Who the 
shop-boys who become opulent merchants? 
Who the hired laborers who acquire homes, 
and comforts, and respect? Who the rail- 
splitters who lay aside the axe to enter legisla- 
tive halls, and are conducted to presidential 
chairs? They are those who give their souls 
to their work, while other thousands — oh, how 
many ! — pass away into utter nothingness. The 
billows of ruin sweep over them, and they are 
lost and forgotten forever. 

The question to be decided in becoming a 
Christian is, Shall I serve God or the world? 
Shall I live for time or eternity ? Shall I pre- 
fer to suffer affliction with the people of God, 
or enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ? It is 
the decision of this question which agitates and 
often rends the soul, as if a demoniac power 
were shaking it. Until this decision is made 
the soul is restless. So soon as this question 
is settled, and the soul has uttered the voice, I 
am resolved what to do, there is comparative 
peace. The yoke thus taken up becomes easy, 
the burden thus lifted becomes light. 

In whatever work we engage, the entire con- 
E 



66 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

secration of one's energies soon makes it pleas- 
ant. The artist may at first go with reluctance 
to his studio. The sky is cloudless, the fields 
are dressed in their richest verdure, and pleas- 
ure beacons him to the grove or the lake. But 
when, month after month, he has applied all 
the energies of his soul to his work, and crea- 
tions of beauty rise upon the canvas beneath his 
pencil — the spreading landscape, the placid 
lake, the misty mountain — then his studio be- 
comes his elysium, his toil becomes his delight. 
He finds a pleasure here far greater than he 
could find strolling through grove and meadow 
with rod or gun. 

So it is with all honorable employment. The 
student at first finds it necessary to take up a 
cross, and to turn a deaf ear to the seductions 
of pleasure. But soon he loves, above all things 
else, the silence of his study and communion 
with his books. The farmer, by devotion to 
his business, soon acquires a taste for his enno- 
bling employment. In his fields, with mead- 
ow, and upland, and wood-lot, he finds a happy 
home, which he leaves with reluctance, and to 
which he returns with joy. 

It is thus peculiarly with the religious life. 
It becomes more and more pleasant every day. 
Upon this pilgrimage one is often, as it were, 



HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 67 

ascending a mountain, where the prospect, hour 
after hour, becomes more expanded and glori- 
ous. It is like beholding the dawn, which 
grows brighter and brighter, till hill and vale, 
lake and forest, are bathed in a blaze of efful- 
gence. There is in religion that which is di- 
vine. It is the soul's native air, its paradise, 
its celestial home. Every sorrow it soothes, 
every pain it assuages, every disappointment it 
alleviates. It invests the furrowed brow and 
gray hairs with the crown of a coming glory. 
Old age, with all its infirmities, is rendered by 
it better, nobler, happier than youth. Death 
presents himself to the Christian with smiles 
of welcome. He comes to robe the conqueror 
for presentation at Heaven's courts. His ad- 
vent is attended by a celestial retinue to escort 
the victor to his home in the skies. Is this 
death ? 

< l No, no ! It is not dying 

To go unto our God ; 
This gloomy earth forsaking, 
Our journey homeward taking, 

Along the starry road." 

Sinning, sorrowing, world-weary ones, here is 
rest, which God offers you without money and 
without price. It is a common remark in 
worldly matters that the best article is the 



68 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

cheapest. In nothing is this more true than 
in religion. You can, perhaps, tuni the sod 
with a poor plow, mow with a cheap scythe, 
and drive puny and skeleton oxen ; but you 
can not afford to take up with a second-rate re- 
ligion. You need the very best which can be 
obtained on earth. If you have adopted a 
poor, unreliable faith, against which your con- 
science is ever protesting, with no sacraments, 
no fervent prayer, no zealous consecration to 
God, cast the miserable delusion away, and em- 
brace " pure religion and undefiled." In your 
career through immortality, it is not safe to 
trust yourself to any guide but to the wisest 
and the best. I can afford to eat coarse bread, 
and to wear a threadbare coat, and to live in a 
humble home, but I must have the best relig- 
ion. If any one can show me a better than 
the one presented in these pages, I will aban- 
don this, and embrace that as the true gospel. 
That is the best religion which makes the best 
men, which enkindles in the heart the purest 
love for God and for mankind. And there can 
be none better than the Gospel of Christ. It 
is pure gold, the priceless pearl. The tree is 
known by its fruit. Look at Christianity, 

It requires the abandonment of every thing 
that is wrong, and the doing of every thing that 



HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 69 

is right It presents us with that sacrifice of 
our Savior, in virtue of which God can be just, 
and yet justify the penitent sinner. And it of- 
fers us, in all our weakness, the aid of the Holy 
Spirit, to enable us to come off conquerors in 
every spiritual conflict. We can not conceive 
of any thing soaring above its requirements. 
God is your father, to be loved with your whole 
heart. Man is your brother, to be loved as 
yourself. Life is to be devoted to the glory of 
God by doing good to your brother man ; and 
every favor you confer upon your brother man, 
God regards as conferred upon himself. 

Solemn looks, long prayers, loud professions, 
are the very worst weapons the Christian sol- 
dier can wield. They do but make him re- 
pulsive, impede his action, incapacitate him for 
success. A genial, joyous spirit, frankness, mag- 
nanimity, disinterestedness, the highest -toned 
honor, these are the weapons he must ever 
keep bright. 

Stratagem may be successful in worldly war- 
fare. It was a maxim worthy of paganism, An 
virtus an dolos quis ah hoste requirat — that is, it 
is equally allowable to conquer your enemy by 
courage or by cunning; but in the Christian 
conflict intrigue and trickery are invariably 
disastrous. Be frank, open, honest as the day. 



70 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Scorn all manoeuvring. Never do that which 
you are afraid will be found out. That which 
can not be done ingenuously is not worth do- 
ing at all. There never was a shrewd manoeu- 
vrer who did not eventually manoeuvre him- 
self out of all confidence and influence. Be as 
transparent in your conduct as the light. Thus 
shall you escape many a pang and many a hu- 
miliation. 

Let your progress be steadily onward, firm, 
and unwavering. Washington was as warm a 
patriot in the evening of a defeat as in the 
morning of a victory. His love of country did 
not ebb and flow with the surges of the battle. 
His bosom glowed with as much patriotic ar- 
dor when retreating through the Jerseys, and 
when shivering in the huts of Valley Forge, as 
when he stood exultant on the heights of Dor- 
chester, or when he received the sword of Corn- 
wallis on the plains of Yorktown. 

There is a kind of backsliding religion which 
is detestable and a sham ; up to-day, down to- 
morrow ; now hot, now cold. It is as if the 
sun should lift its head above the horizon in 
its glorious dawning, and then should slip back 
a few degrees, leaving the world in blackness. 
Again it ascends, rises bright and clear; mount- 
ains and valleys are bathed in splendor, trees 



HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN". 71 

wave in the golden light, and the songs of 
birds fill the air, when suddenly there is an- 
other slip- and the gloom of midnight ensues. 
Thus, by a series of uprisings and backslidings, 
it struggles painfully toward the zenith. Such 
piety is worth but little. "The path of the 
just is like the shining light, that shineth more 
and more unto the perfect day." 

There is much nobility in the character 
which true Christianity forms. John Newton 
was an abandoned sailor, who had deserted his 
ship, and was living in sin and misery among 
the natives on the shores of Africa. His pious 
mother had long been dead; but the remem- 
brance of her soft hand upon his head when a 
child, and her fervent prayers in his behalfi 
brought him, like another prodigal, to himself. 
He plead for mercy, trusted in the Savior^ 
abandoned his sins, and returned to England a 
broken-hearted penitent, but a rejoicing Chris- 
tian. He entered the ministry, devoted his life 
to the service of Christ, and became one of the 
most earnest laborers in the Lord's vineyard 
the world has ever known. He was instru- 
mental in the conversion of large numbers, and 
died at a good old age, venerable in virtues, 
and rich in the love of the whole community. 
He it was who wrote that beautiful hymn, 



72 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

"One there is, above all others, 

Well deserves the name of Friend." 

William Wirt was attorney general of the 
United States. He was one of the most ac- 
complished scholars, profound reasoners, and 
eloquent orators our country has produced. 
His amiable disposition, his unobtrusive and 
polished manners, his refined taste, and his high 
intellectual attainments, secured for him the es- 
teem and almost the homage of the community; 
but he was living without love for God, with- 
out penitence for sin, without trust in Christ, 
without care for the souls of his fellow-men. 

While thus living, he heard a poor blind 
preacher, James Waddell, tell the story of a 
Savior's love. His heart was touched. He 
wept over his neglect of God. He prayed, 
"Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." He com- 
menced a new life of prayer, of penitence, and 
of Christian duty. He became the warm 
friend and eloquent advocate of missions, and 
of every effort of Christian benevolence, and, 
in the high circles in which he moved, gave 
his commanding influence openly and entirely 
for Christ ; and in the hour of death, hope and 
joy beamed from his eye, brilliant with almost 
celestial vision, as he exclaimed^ "Lord Jesus^ 
receive my spirit." 



HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 73 

William Wilberforce was a young man of 
distinguished birth, princely fortune, and bril- 
liant genius. His rank in life, his unrivaled 
wit, his skill in debate, and his fascinating elo- 
quence, all conspired to make him one of the 
most conspicuous members of the British House 
of Commons, and his society was courted by 
the most aristocratic circles of aristocratic En- 
gland. 

As he was traveling, with fashionable and 
pleasure-seeking companions, on the Continent 
of Europe, in a leisure hour he chanced to open 
Doddridge's Eise and Progress of Eeligion in 
the Soul. His attention was arrested, and, as 
he read, his eyes were opened and his heart 
touched. As there was thus revealed to him 
his own lost condition, his alienation from God, 
his need of a change of heart, he was over- 
whelmed with anguish, and plead for mercy. 

He soon found peace, and, with the .boldness 
of Paul, confessing his Savior before men, com- 
menced immediately an active, prayerful, self- 
denying Christian life; and then, in the exer- 
cise of moral courage which has perhaps never 
been surpassed, William Wilberforce moved, 
in the very highest circles of rank and intellect 
this world has ever known, a humble, consist- 
ent disciple of Jesus Christ, never ashamed of 



74 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

that Savior who had redeemed him by his 
blood. 

He wrote an earnest appeal in behalf of the 
religion of the Gospel, and published it at his 
own expense, and presented a handsomely- 
bound copy to every member of the House of 
Commons and the House of Lords. He de- 
voted the resources of his brilliant mind, the 
influence of his exalted station, and the income 
of his large fortune to the interests of humani- 
ty. England, nay, Christendom, mourned when 
Wilberforce died ; and as the organ in West- 
minster Abbey uttered its requiem over his 
burial, gathering thousands dropped a tear in 
reverence of his memory. He is now, we 
doubt not, in heaven. Archangels are his com- 
panions and friends ; but the influence of his 
life and labor still lives on earth. 

Eeader, will you become a Christian ? All 
other questions are trivial compared with this. 
The effulgence of a bright day will soon be 
upon us. Its morning has dawned. A travel- 
er awakes at midnight in the vale of Chamou- 
ni. All is dark and dismal as the shadow of 
death. He sleeps an hour and wakes again. 
What means that slender line of light, far off 
in the west, gleaming like a star? It is the 
summit of Mount Blanc, which has caught the 



HOW TO BECOME A CHBISTIAN. 75 

first rays of the rising sun, while the glowing 
orb is yet far below the horizon. Majestically 
the illumination descends the mountain. Pin- 
nacles, cliffs, glaciers, are gilded with glory. 
He gazes upon the phenomenon with awe and 
rapture. And now the whole valley is flooded 
with light. Another day is born. 

England and America are the loftiest peaks 
of the moral world. They have caught the 
rays of the Sun of Eighteousness, and are illu- 
mined with the tremulous light. Soon shall 
the lower vales of Europe, and the dark gorges 
of Asia, Africa, and the Islands of the Sea, be 
penetrated, and the Sun of Eighteousness shall 
flood the earth with its rays. " The day is far 
spent ; the night is at hand." 



76 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WHAT ARE THE DUTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN? 

The glad Tidings. — The doomed Man pardoned. — Louis 
XVI. and Malesherbes. — Evidence that One is a Chris- 
tian. — How is a Change of Heart effected? — God's Love. 
— How it operates. — The Ship-carpenter. — The Battle of 
Life. — The domestic Waterloo.— Constitutional Tempera- 
ments. — Religion as a Source and Cause of Happiness. — 
Its beneficent Influence. 

Glorious is the mission of a minister of Je- 
sus Christ. He is the bearer of glad tidings — 
to the sinner, redemption ; to the mourner, sol- 
ace j' to the dying, victory. If he were com- 
missioned to carry to the condemned the doom 
of death, then might he well clothe himself in 
sackcloth and shroud the church in mourning. 
Birds should hush their songs, and flowers wilt, 
and winds wail their requiems as, with pallid 
cheek and sobbing voice, the dreadful message 
should be communicated. 

But it is not so. The herald of the Cross 
bears glad tidings of great joy. With beam- 
ing face and throbbing heart he may penetrate 
deepest dungeons, shouting "Pardon, pardon 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 77 

for all who will accept." "Well may our church- 
es be decorated with flowers, and every face be 
radiant with joy, as the glad tidings of the Gos- 
pel are proclaimed. The Christian minister is 
sent "to bind up the broken-hearted, to pro- 
claim liberty to the captive, and the opening 
of the prison to them which are bound." He 
is fraught with the same message which the 
seraph proclaimed to the shepherds of Bethle- 
hem, as angels in retinue woke the echoes of 
the skies, singing exultingly, 

" Glory to God in the highest ; peace on 
earth, good- will among men." It is indeed a 
sad duty to be the bearer of evil tidings. Louis 
XVI., in the tower of the Temple, was doomed 
to die. Malesherbes was to acquaint him with 
his doom. Woe-stricken, haggard, with dis- 
heveled hair, the illustrious friend of the mon- 
arch tottered up the steps of the prison, and, 
falling at the feet of the king, his tongue seem- 
ed palsied with anguish, and he could only 
groan, and weep, and bathe the hand of the 
monarch with tears. It is thus, with crushed 
heart, that we bear the messages of death. 

But oh ! how different when we are commis- 
sioned with tidings of life and joy. A distin- 
guished French general was doomed to die. In 
a dungeon of the Conciergerie he awaited the 



78 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

dawn, when lie was to be led to the guillotine. 
He had been guilty of treason, and was justly 
condemned. His daughter, a child of seven- 
teen, forced her way to the presence of the em- 
peror at St. Cloud, and, in agony, threw herself 
at his feet, crying, 

" Pardon, pardon, sire, for my poor father!" 

A scene of supplication, tears, and anguish 
ensued which no pen can describe. At length 
the emperor said, 

"Well, yes, my child, for your sake I will 
pardon your father, trusting that for your sake 
he will not again plot rebellion." 

And now, enraptured, she is the messenger 
of glad tidings. Accompanied by congratu- 
lating friends, she enters a carriage, and the 
horses are urged to their utmost speed. Her 
heart is bursting with the impatience of bliss 
as she hurries to the dungeon door. The rusty 
hinges turn, and she throws herself into the 
pinioned arms of her father, exclaiming, 

" Pardon, pardon, pardon, dear father ! You 
are pardoned and free !" 

And then she swoons away upon the bosom 
of her father in an excess of rapture too over- 
powering for a human soul to endure. 

It is true that there are those who will not 
accept this pardon and return to God ; prodi- 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 79 

gals who cleave to their wanderings, and per- 
sistently renounce paternal love. 

"But shall the children of a king 
Go mourning all their days" 

because there are those who will not be the 
children of that king, and who reject his prof- 
fered love ? No. God is the father and friend 
of all who will accept him as a father. None 
will perish but those who will not come unto 
him that they may have life. 

It is a very difficult thing to induce a man 
to resist any one of the ten thousand tempta- 
tions which are ever pressing upon him. Many 
men are called moral simply because God has 
placed them in circumstances in which it is not 
easy for them to commit those particular sins 
which society condemns. But to lead a man 
to resolve, 

" I will, God helping me, do every thing I 
think to be right, and I will do nothing which 
I think to be wrong" — 

To lead a man to this resolve surpasses all 
the unaided power of the human intellect. 
Nothing but the Spirit of God can influence to 
this effectual decision. If you doubt it, reader, 
go and try the experiment upon some of your 
neighbors. You will soon confess, with one of 
the most eloquent of the French preachers, that 



80 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

you " find old Adam too strong for young Me- 
lancthon." Can you honestly say that you have 
formed this resolution, and that you are try- 
ing earnestly, prayerfully, thus to live ? And 
surely you will require no argument to prove 
that you ought to do all that is right, and that 
you ought to refuse to do any thing that is 
wrong ? 

When you hear a man say, " I always calcu- 
late to do about what is right" — about what is 
right, you have, according to my experience, in 
nine cases out of ten, met with a hopeless rep- 
robate. When a man says frankly, "I know 
that I am living shamefully, and I despise my- 
self for it," then, though he may be a very 
wicked man, there is at least some honesty in 
him, and some hope for him. But when one 
can declare, with tearful eye and fervid spirit, 
"0 Lord, thou dost know that it is my daily 
desire, and endeavor, and prayer that I may do 
all that is pleasing to thee, and avoid all that is 
displeasing to thee," then may he feel indeed 
that he has entered the "straight gate." This 
is the frame of mind to which the soul is 
brought by the Spirit of Grod in conversion. 

Therefore it w T ould not seem difficult for any 
man to decide the question, with a good degree 
of certainty, "Am I a Christian?" We can 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN". 81 

surely, with some considerable accuracy, ascer- 
tain what is our ruling desire, and what is the 
main object of our endeavors. The question 
is not, Are you actually doing every thing that 
is right, and nothing that is wrong ; but is it 
the honest purpose of your heart, and the daily 
endeavor of your life, and the unceasing object 
of your prayers, that you may thus live ? Then 
you are a Christian. This includes all. Then 
you shall "know of the doctrine," for you are 
" doing God 7 s will." Then shall you have pen- 
itence, and saving faith, and spiritual illumina- 
tion, and you shall go on your way rejoicing. 
If you have only the "willing mind," God will 
lead you in at the celestial gate. 

If you have not this spirit you are not a 
Christian, no matter what else you may be. 
If you have not this spirit you can not go to 
heaven, and without it you ought not to be 
admitted there. If we can judge at all of the 
Divine administration from any principles 
which are recognized among men, it would be 
weakness in God to admit a man to heaven 
who is in rebellion against the spirit of heav- 
en. God would be thus untrue to his own 
character, and unfaithful to the avowed princi- 
ples of his own government. Ought God to 
introduce to angel companionship men who do 
F 



82 PEACTICAL CHEISTIANITY. 

not even wish to do as lie desires that they 
should — -men who will not even try to bring 
their conduct into conformity to his will ? Such 
men have made this world miserable enough. 
It is to be hoped that they will not have the 
opportunity of trying the experiment over 
again in heaven. 

Thus simple are the requirements of relig- 
ion. Thus are its fundamental doctrines in ac- 
cordance with the plainest teachings of common 
sense. Conversion is simply returning in pen- 
itence from rebellion to God, endeavoring in 
every thing to live in accordance with his will. 
And you can not find any honest man who will 
say that a man ought to be admitted to heaven 
if he will not serve God. A finite mind can 
not measure the enormity of sin to know the 
doom it merits. But this we do know, that 
those who are suffering eternal punishment are 
those who eternally will refuse to love and 
serve their Maker. There are no penitents in 
the world of woe, with contrite hearts pleading 
the merits of Christ, and striving to lead the 
lost ones around them to love and obey God. 
Hell is but the abode of defiance and blas- 
phemy. 

But how is this change from sin to penitence 
and amendment effected in the mind ? Matter 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 83 

is moved by material force. You drive the 
spike by sledge-hammer blows. Mind is sway- 
ed by motive. You win love by kindness. 
You lure to duty by rewards. You dissuade 
from wrong by penalty. Hence the Gospel 
comes, not with, physical compulsion, impossi- 
ble to be used upon mind, but with entreaty 
and warning. 

Become God's loving child, and he will adopt 
you as his son and heir. His Spirit will so 
blend with your endeavors as to secure for you 
a new heart, pure, noble, angelic. It is thus 
that you " work out your own salvation, be- 
cause God worketh within you both to will 
and to do." He will give you a new body, 
which shall never again be sick, or tire, or feel 
decay. He will introduce you to a new world, 
where there shall be no calamity, storm, or 
night. He will give you a new mansion, which 
celestial architects have planned and reared, 
and which neither pain, nor grief, nor death 
can enter. He will give you new companions, 
who shall love you with perfect love, and who 
shall consecrate all the energies of their enno- 
bled natures to minister to your delight. He 
will give you a robe, a harp, and a crown, such 
as angels wear, and wing you for an endless 
flight, with eternity for your lifetime, and infin- 



84: PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ity to explore. These are some of the motives 
which God presents to lure to duty. 

But the law of God has its penalty as well as 
its reward, else it would not be law, but advice 
only. Continue in rebellion, and your soul 
must sink lower and lower in sin until it be- 
comes fiend-like. Your body, called from the 
grave by the resurrection trump, " shall awake 
to shame and everlasting contempt." Your fu- 
ture world shall be that prepared for "the an- 
gels which kept not their first estate," where the 
worm gnaws, and the fire burns; where there is 
weeping and wailing, and the blackness of dark- 
ness forever. Your abode shall be the prison 
where the devil and his angels are reserved in 
chains. Your companions shall be lost spirits 
who fell from heaven, and all the abandoned 
of earth. The duration of your existence shall 
be eternity, for the soul can not die. The pris- 
on of despair shall confine you. The walls of 
that prison you can never scale. The gulf 
which surrounds those walls is so broad, so 
deep, that no pinion of fiend or angel can pass 
it. Such is the penalty of God's law, awful be- 
yond the conceptions of a finite mind, but one 
which, perhaps, God even can not avert, man 
being free. This penalty may be as inevitable 
a necessity of sin as that fire should burn or 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 85 

water drown. If God has made man free, here- 
after as well as here (and it appears from Scrip- 
ture that God has done this), and if a man will 
not obey God, how can God admit him to heav- 
en? That he must be excluded is not a con- 
clusion drawn from theological subtleties alone, 
but from what Locke calls " plain, round-about 
common sense." 

It is a great mistake to suppose that God's 
love beams only from heaven, and that his 
wrath blazes fiercely from hell. The state 
prison which a vigorous government rears is 
not a monument of the ferocity and merciless- 
ness of that government, but, on the contrary, 
it is a monument of its beneficence, wisdom, and 
love. And still that government must sternly 
condemn those guilty men who are doomed to 
expiate their crimes in the convict's cell. It 
does not merely pity them ; it calls them crimi- 
nals, who merit the punishment they receive. The 
whole broad state can not exhibit a more im- 
pressive memorial of the paternal care of the 
government for the protection and happiness 
of its citizens than is to be seen in the granite 
walls, and gloomy dungeons, and grated win- 
dows, where the disturbers of the public peace 
are restrained from farther violence. 

And thus it is, perhaps, that in the future 



86 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

world the love of Grod will not beam more 
brightly in the illumination which flashes from 
the palaces of heaven upon golden crowns, and 
empurpled robes, and the swift pinions of ce- 
lestial choirs, than will that love, that paternal 
protecting love, shine from those adamantine 
battlements, and those dungeons of gloom, 
where the devil and his followers are held se- 
cure forever. 

But perhaps the reader asks, How am I to 
acquire and maintain this spirit of obedience 
and love ? 

1. Ask for it. The very asking sincerely is 
having. 

2. Give time to meditation. Think what it 
is to be an angel, what to be a fiend ; and re- 
member that you must be the one or the other 
eternally. 

3. Nip wrong in the bud. "Obsta princi- 
pus" — oppose the beginnings of evil — was even a 
pagan maxim. Commence your defenses in 
the heart. Do not allow yourself even to think 
of wrong — no, not for one instant. You are 
never safe if you allow yourself to parley with 
a wicked thought. 

4. Let your outward conduct be what it 
should be if your heart were right. Some- 
times we are compelled to work from the out- 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 87 

ward man to the inward man, from the body to 
the soul. 

"When the ship-carpenter would make the 
oaken timber, with its heart as of steel, pliant, 
so that it shall bend like a wand, he places it 
in the steam-chest and lights his fires, and the 
infinitesimal particles of the steam pierce the 
fibrous wood till the heart of the oak is reach- 
ed, and bends, like a willow twig, at the will 
of its conqueror. 

Thus a smile upon the cheek will often force 
its way to the saddened heart, and make that 
smile. A kind word from the lips, even when 
the soul of the speaker is irritated, will often 
penetrate the deepest recesses of that soul, and 
awaken kindly emotions there. A friendly 
deed, exercised toward one whom it is hard to 
forgive, will often warm and bless the heart it- 
self, enkindling there the spirit of forgiveness. 
Let benevolence, then, smile upon your cheek, 
- and kind words be spoken from your lips, and 
deeds of beneficence proceed from your hands. 
Thus shall smile, and voice, and action be but 
as angel co-operators to lift your soul to celes- 
tial dignity, to the loveliness and the magna- 
nimity of God's son and heir; they shall be 
but the plumage of the pinions on which you 
shall soar to your heavenly home. 



88 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Such is the spirit of Christ. God is your 
father, every man your brother. All caste is 
broken down. All tribes, tongues, races, are 
merged in the universal fraternity. Man is 
God's child, no matter where cradled and nur- 
tured. No matter whether he come from the 
bleak realms of Norway, or from the vine-clad 
Ehine, or from sunny Italy, or from barbaric 
Asia, or from benighted Africa, or from swarm- 
ing Ireland, or from the boundless prairies 
where the Eed Man hunts his game — every 
where man is the brother of his fellow-man, 
made of one blood, to be purified, elevated, en- 
nobled by fraternal love and unwearied aid. 

Life is with every one a battle-field, and the 
Christian conflict is ever arduous. President 
Kirkland, of Harvard College, once remarked 
satirically of a wealthy clergyman, that he was 
clothed in purple and fine linen, fared sumptu- 
ously every day, and preached eloquent ser- 
mons, upon self-denial. It is easy for a man 
of genius to write glowingly of conflicts and 
sacrifices of which he knows nothing in his 
own personal experience. 

There are many Christians, in vigorous health 
and in prosperity, who know but little of the 
trials of faith and patience to which others are 
exposed. Look at this mother of a large fam- 



THE DUTIES OF A CHEISTIAN. 89 

ily, with small means and feeble health. The 
sick child in the cradle is crying. The house- 
hold work, all unaided, is to be done. There 
is food to be cooked ; there are clothes to be 
washed, garments to be mended, beds to be 
made, rooms to be cleaned, and a group of chil- 
dren to be watched oyer and trained. The 
husband, perhaps, cold and thoughtless, never 
gives his wife a sympathizing word. A sick 
babe keeps her awake at night, and, pale and 
emaciate, she is scarcely able to drag her limbs 
along through the toils of the day. Her nerv- 
ous system is entirely shattered. She has no 
recreation, no change. It is the same weary 
round day and night, month after month, year 
after year. It is seldom even that she can get 
to the house of Grod, to have her spirit refresh- 
ed by a glimpse of the rest provided for her 
when her journey shall end. 

Why God leads so many of his children 
through such trials we know not ; but beauti- 
ful indeed is the aspect of religion when we see 
one passing through such valleys of humilia- 
tion with a calm and placid spirit. There are 
many such. Christianity has no heroines su- 
perior to these. Martyrdom has no flames more 
trying to faith than these. There are probably 
no crowns in heaven brighter than those pre- 



90 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

pared for victors in such wearing, wasting, in- 
terminable conflicts. When faith is thus tri- 
umphant, and passion is subdued, and the whole 
spirit is brought into subjection to God's law, we 
have the highest victory Christianity can give. 

The great battles of earth are fought at Mar- 
athon, Austerlitz, and at "Waterloo. The bat- 
tles of the Cross, to win a celestial crown, are 
fought in the crowded shop, amid the harass- 
ments of traffic, and at the kitchen fire, where 
children cry, and duties press, and nerves ache, 
and the spirit sinks almost crushed beneath its 
load. The faith which triumphs here is surely 
celestial. Care-worn mother, you who are so 
weary and so heavy laden, be of good courage. 
Your trials are great, your conflicts severe. 
Angel eyes watch the issues of the battle. If 
you come off a victor, great will be the con- 
quest and the reward; and you can do all 
things through Christ strengthening you. 

Every man seems to be created with certain 
innate traits of character, which Christianity 
controls, but does not essentially change. These 
traits are often developed in the cradle, and 
continue to the grave. The ardent, impassion- 
ed man carries a glow into every thing. He 
strikes with the hammer, swings the scythe, 
embraces political views differently from the 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 91 

man of less excitable nature. He has both the 
virtues and the faults of the impulsive man. 
His feelings are easily aroused, and perhaps 
quickly subside. Like Oassius, he carries anger 

" As a flint bears fire, 
Which, being much enforced, doth show a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again." 

Such men are of great value in the Church. 
They are easily elated and roused to exertions ; 
but, on the other hand, they have correlative 
faults, being easily disheartened. In the hour 
of triumph they are standard-bearers ; in the 
day of defeat they are of but little avail. 

The greatest of all earthly commanders in- 
trusted the fiery Murat to lead the charge when 
his columns were striding on to victory; but 
in the awful hour of retreat, when the exhaust- 
ed battalions were staggering over the frozen 
plains, the imperturbable ISTey was assigned to 
the command of the rear-guard. 

It is not easy to decide who are the most use- 
ful men, the ardent or the cool and reflective. 
Both are needed. The reflective must guide 
in council, and the impetuous go forward in ac- 
tion. This diversity of natural temperament 
pervades the whole of our religious experience. 
We have our favorite hymns, our favorite pas- 
sages of Scripture, our favorite religious truths. 



92 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

One clergyman places upon his study table 
a vase of flowers, that fragrance and beauty 
may be ever before him. Another seeks clois- 
tered glooms. A dimly -burning taper reveals 
a skull-bone and a coffin by his side. 

Jeremiah wails funereal songs, and his Lam- 
entations sweep the heartstrings of all the chil- 
dren of sorrow: "Oh that my head were wa- 
ters, and my eyes a fountain of tears!" Isaiah, 
exultant, peals the trumpet tones of victory : 
"Arise, shine, for thy light is come." 

Christianity is revealed to man in wonderful 
adaptation to this diversity of natural temper- 
ament. To one, God is revealed prominently 
as the universal loving Father ; to another, as 
the compassionate dying Savior; to another, 
as the guiding and consoling Spirit. The mind, 
through its constitutional temperament, grasps 
the one or the other of these revealings. 

One man, naturally proud and unyielding, 
whose heart has long refused submission to 
God, and who has at length been thoroughly 
subdued, and has submitted with the spirit of 
a little child; finds submission to be the relig- 
ious truth which governs his mind. 

Another man becomes convinced of his ut- 
terly lost and helpless condition. He feels his 
entire inability to extricate himself from sin, 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 93 

and, in despair, casts himself upon the mercy 
of God and finds pardon. Helplessness, moral 
inability, becomes his ruling idea. He desires 
this truth to be prominent in every prayer and 
in every sermon. 

But here is a man who has heard mobility 
preached all his life. Soothing himself with 
the delusion that he can do nothing, he has 
been long " waiting God's time." At length 
he is roused by a sermon upon human respon- 
sibility. He is called upon to "work out his 
own salvation." Eoused by this new view of 
truth, he prays, he reads his Bible, he attends 
prayer-meetings, he strives with all his ener- 
gies of penitence and supplication to enter the 
strait gate. Soon he is cheered by the assur- 
ance that he has truly commenced his pilgrim- 
age to the celestial city. In his view human 
responsibility becomes the great truth which 
must unceasingly be urged upon the sinner's 
heart. 

Another man, hardened in sin, has been start- 
led by the thunders of eternal retribution. The 
terrible vision of hell, its dungeons, chains, 
and penal fires, appall his mind. To every 
other appeal he had been insensible, until the 
groans of the damned affrighted him, and he 
fled from the wrath to come. Hell becomes 



94 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

the nucleus of Ms theology. Hell is with him 
the sword of the Spirit, the great power of God 
for the conversion of the world. 

Another, of more mild and affectionate tem- 
perament, has been won by the view of heav- 
en, so vividly pictured in God's word. Its 
green pastures and still waters; its pure and 
loving companionship ; its mansions, and robes, 
and harps, and crowns ; its angel bands, circling 
around the throne of a tender father — all have 
melted the heart and flooded the eye, and have 
led to the entire consecration of heart and life 
to the Savior. 

He who has the spirit of Christ is Christ's 
disciple, no matter through what instrumental- 
ity he may have been led to the abandonment 
of sin. Many a true Christian groped his way 
to heaven through the cloistered .glooms of 
the Middle Ages. The Church can show no 
brighter ornaments than Fenelon, and Paschal, 
and Thomas a Kempis, though in days of dark- 
ness they counted their beads, and performed 
painful penances, and responded to liturgies 
hoary with the encumbering accumulations 
of benighted centuries. When feudal armies 
scourged the world, and rapine and violence 
filled all lands, in many a battlemented castle, 
and in many a convent cell, there were found 



THE DUTIES OF A CHRISTIAN. 95 

disciples of Jesus, hungering and thirsting for 
righteousness, who wept, and prayed, and died, 
and ascended to their reward. It is, indeed, 
cheering to see the spirit of piety triumphing 
over mental darkness and over intellectual er- 
rors. 

Unless your religion makes your home hap- 
py, and your neighbors happy, and your own 
heart happy, it is a miserable delusion. There 
may be other sources of sorrow, but religion is 
only an instrument of joy. That religion which 
contents itself with saying, " Lord ! Lord!" and 
yet does not God's will ; which allows the 
tongue to distill the venom of slander, and the 
soul to indulge itself in petulance ; which drives 
hard bargains ; which crushes the poor, rivets 
shackles upon the oppressed, speaks no solace 
to the sorrowing, and lifts no burdens from tot- 
tering shoulders — however uncompromising 
and zealous it may be, it is not even a counter- 
feit of Christianity ; it is Christianity's most 
formidable antagonist, most malignant foe. 

The religion of Christ is pure, honest, just, 
lovely, and of good report. It is a religion 
which returns smiles for frowns, blessings for 
curses, good for evil. It is a religion which en- 
joins kindly affections, and which requires not 
only that " when ye be buffeted for your faults, 



96 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ye shall take it patiently," but that " when ye 
do well and suffer for it," ye shall take that pa- 
tiently also. Christianity rises over a sorrow- 
stricken world like the morning sun, which dis- 
pels darkness and gloom, drives wild beasts to 
their lairs, and opens the flowers, and inspires 
birds' songs, and causes the trees to clap their 
hands for joy. 

The true Christian makes Christ his pattern ; 
tries every day to look as Christ would look, 
kindly, affectionately, sympathetically ; to speak 
as Christ would speak when annoyances tempt, 
when unjust reproaches provoke ; to think as 
Christ would think, spreading over the faults 
of others the mantle of Christian charity. How 
much more kind is God than man ! Man is so 
ready to be blind to the beam, and eagle-eyed 
to the mote ; so ready to throw the stone at an- 
other, perhaps not half so guilty as himself; so 
prone to assail his brother with the taunt, act- 
ed, if not spoken, " / am holier than thou" 

When all Christians shall manifest the spirit 
of Christ, ever loving, forgiving, aiding, mak- 
ing charitable allowances — all trying to make 
life's burdens lighter, even for the evil and the 
unthankful, then, indeed, will the desert blos- 
som as the rose. It is this spirit which is the 
real development of Christianity, its aim and 



THE DUTIES OF A CHKISTIAN. 97 

its end. The Christian should say nothing 
which may not be repeated ; do nothing which 
may not be known. Whenever he can carry 
a message which will make neighbors love each 
other, he should do it. Whenever he can car- 
ry a message which will wound feelings, pro- 
mote alienation, stir up strife, he should sooner 
gnaw out his own tongue than be guilty of the 
pestilent crime. 

The promotion of happiness and the allevia- 
tion of the sorrows of this sorrowing world 
should be one of the primal objects of the 
Christian every day. And he should remem- 
ber that happiness is not mainly promoted by 
now and then a great sacrifice, but by the little 
courtesies of life, the trivial kindnesses which 
are scattered through every hour. Life is 
cheered by smiles, and kind words, and friend- 
ly greetings, and polite attentions. Words, how 
tremendous their power ! They strike heavier 
than cannon balls, and pierce deeper than sabre 
thrusts. "Be ye courteous," says an inspired 
apostle. Is this legal preaching? Nay, it is 
preaching Christ. Unless ye have the spirit 
of Christ, ye are none of his. In no other way 
than this can you manifest the spirit of Christ, 
of Him whose marked characteristic it was 
that he went about doing good. 
G 



98 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE 
WANTS OF THE WORLD. 

The Forms and Spirit which Religion assumes. — Compre- 
hensiveness of the Christian Scheme. — The Grandeur of 
Christianity. — The two Efforts for the Overthrow of Chris- 
tianity. — Persecution. — Corruption. — The Papacy.- — The 
Duchess at Versailles. — Socrates ; his Religion ; his Pu- 
pils. — Humboldt, — The Christian Sailor-boy. — True No- 
bility. 

It is the practical aspect of Christianity 
which constitutes its great glory. It is the 
power which it possesses of transforming the 
selfish heart into the spirit of celestial 'benevo- 
lence, of creating wicked men anew in Christ 
Jesus — it is this power which makes Christian- 
ity so peculiarly the needed religion for the 
whole world, which gives it its supremacy over 
all human philosophy and all false religions. 
But wicked men will resort to almost any ref- 
uge to escape from this practical godliness; 
and even good men, partially sanctified, are 
ever eager to find some substitute for this ren- 



THE WANT OF THE WOKLD. 



ovation of heart and life, this becoming a new 
creature in Christ Jesus. 

Hence we have the religion of Formalism, 
with gorgeous cathedrals, and pealing organs, 
and censers, and robes, and genuflections, and 
holy days, all to compensate for the want of 
holy lives. 

Hence we have the religion of Dogmas, stern 
orthodoxy, dead creeds ; a faith inflexible, gran- 
itic, and craggy, upon which no flower blooms, 
no fruit ripens ; a Sodomic apple, a sepulchre 
garnished. 

Hence we have the religion of Emotion, 
transient and spasmodic, with heat and cold, 
revivings and backslidings ; all a-glow to-day, 
all ice to-morrow ; now praying like an angel, 
with swimming eye and choked utterance, and 
now, with the unrepentant prodigal, eating the 
husks of swine. 

Hence we have the religion of Pharisaism — 
the "Lord, I thank thee," spirit, the proud re- 
liance upon mere integrity in traffic, the grov- 
eling boast, "I am as good as my neighbors;" 
with no broken heart, no tear of contrition, no 
faith in an atoning Savior, no hungerings and 
thirstings for righteousness. 

Hence we have the religion of Reform, plant- 
ing great batteries to bombard slavery, intern- 



100 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

perance, and all the demon vices which, enslave 
humanity ; fighting them with their own weap- 
ons, with clamor and wrath; throwing away 
the sword of the Spirit which Christ has placed 
in our hands with which to achieve all his vic- 
tories, and seizing instead the gory club of car- 
nal warfare; striving to cast out devils by 
Beelzebub, the prince of devils. 

In contrast with all this, how beautiful is the 
religion of Christ ! How divinely is it adapted 
for our lost world! Its cardinal doctrine is, 
God is our common father, and all we are breth- 
ren. Its cardinal duty is to love God with our 
whole heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. 
Its cardinal solace is that, guilty as we are, 
Christ has died for us, and that, if we will now 
return to the Christ-like life, our sins shall all 
be forgiven. Its cardinal encouragement is that, 
frail and weak as we are, the Holy Spirit will 
hear our prayers, and guide and strengthen us, 
so that we shall come off as conquerors, and 
more than conquerors, in every conflict. 

Here we have the religion we need — exact- 
ly that which we need, and all that we need ; 
the religion for our own hearts, for our homes, 
for our country, and for the whole world. It 
is the religion for the week-day as well as for 
the Sabbath-day; the religion to guide the 



THE WANT OF THE WORLD. 101 

farmer in his field, the seaman on the quarter- 
deck, the citizen at the polls, the statesman in 
the cabinet. It is the religion for the young 
man in his hours of terrific temptation, and for 
the old man groping through the shadows of 
death. It is a religion which embraces every 
duty of life, there being nothing so grand as to 
be beyond its reach, nothing so minute as to 
elude its scrutiny. 

This brutal inebriate, belching oaths, reeling 
through the streets in rags and dirt, is your 
brother — one for whom Christ died. His woe- 
stricken wife is your sister ; his beggared chil- 
dren are your younger brethren. You must 
do for them what you can, by your sympathy, 
your influence, your vote, your direct aid. 
What you can — alas ! that it should be so little. 
It is easier to expel Satan in any other form he 
assumes than when he thus takes possession of 
body and soul. But the religion of Christ de- 
mands that no form of earthly woe should 
elude your sympathy, or should dissuade you 
from the attempt to do every thing you can to 
change that degradation and woe into purity 
and happiness. 

These toiling slaves, doomed by their broth- 
ers of a whiter skin to life-long ignorance and 
unpaid servitude, with no hope of culture, shut 



102 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

out from all literature, all science, all elevation, 
even the Bible banished from their cheerless 
hovels — these defrauded men and women, en- 
during the greatest wrongs which man can suf- 
fer from his fellow-man, are your brethren and 
sisters. You should feel for them as if " bound 
with them." Their elevation in the scale of 
intelligence, and comfort, and happiness must 
be an object of your efforts and your prayers. 
You must do for them what you can by the ut- 
terance of right sentiments on all proper occa- 
sions, by whatever of political influence God 
has intrusted to you — what you can, no more, 
no less, to secure their enfranchisement, their 
culture, their introduction to all the high priv- 
ileges and dignities of manhood. 

And thus, through the whole round of hu- 
manity, wherever, in this land or in any other 
land, there is a grief you can assuage, you must 
do it. Wherever you can send a gleam of joy 
into a darkened heart, no matter on what con- 
tinent or island, or in what dungeon of the 
globe, the religion of Christ requires that you 
should do it. The " charity" love of the Chris- 
tian should be like the sunlight, which not 
only bathes in floods of joy the nearest worlds, 
but which irradiates with light and heat the 
remotest planets which circle through the 
abysses of space. 



THE WANT OF THE WOELD. 103 

Oh ! there is grandeur in Christianity. There 
is divine dignity and nobleness in Christianity. 
How exalted the resolve, " My voice, God help- 
ing me, shall always be for the right. My 
heart, God helping me, shall always throb for 
the poor and the oppressed. My influence, 
God helping me, shall be ever exerted to the 
utmost for the elevation of all my brethren of 
the human race to purity, to dignity, and to 
heaven." 

The soul finds peace so soon as this resolve 
is enthroned as its guide. All trials, sacrifices, 
persecutions, encountered in the execution of 
this resolve, become crowns of glory, and pass- 
ports to higher exaltation in celestial courts. 
Does your devotion to this Christ-given princi- 
ple alienate cherished friends, break up estab- 
lished business, eject from office, blight politi- 
cal prospects, curtail income, expose to reproach 
and shame ? — these shall all be like the honor- 
able wounds which attest the heroism of the 
warrior; they shall be ensigns armorial on 
your Christian escutcheon — badges of promo- 
tion in the peerage of heaven. 

Such is Christianity. It is not the religion 
of heartless, dead dogmas, spasmodic experi- 
ences, pharisaic pride. It is penitence for sin, 
trust in the Savior, and the firm, glowing, per- 



104 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

severing adoption of the spirit of Christ. All 
the grand doctrines the Bible reveals, Atone- 
ment, Eegeneration, Sanctification, Adoption, 
Eesurrection, and Final Judgment, are only so 
many motives pressed upon our souls by our 
heavenly Father to aid us in the great conflict 
against sin, and to urge us onward in the ca- 
reer of a blessed immmortality. 

Drops make streamlets, thence brooks, thence 
rivers, thence the ocean, which heaves navies 
upon its bosom, and shakes continents with its 
billows. Your voice, reader, and your heart, 
are perhaps essential parts of those influences 
which shall redeem the world. Let that heart, 
then, ever beat true to humanity, and that voice 
ever speak for God and his truth. 

There have been two great efforts made in 
this world for the overthrow of Christianity. 
The first was to assail it directly by all the en- 
ergies of persecution. For ages the flames of 
martyrdom blazed fiercely, and blood flowed 
in torrents. But this effort signally failed. 

Eesort was then had to corruption. Chris- 
tianity was perverted in all its teachings, and, 
instead of being presented as the friend of the 
captive, the advocate of the poor, the protector 
of the oppressed, a false Christianity was fab- 
ricated by priestly cunning, robed in imperial 



THE WANT OF THE WOKLD. 105 

purple, crowned with the tiara, and swaying 
the sceptre of merciless slavery. This effort 
was more successful. 

Kings and dukes rallied around this de- 
bauched Christianity, shouting its praises, and 
maintaining it with their armies. This wretch- 
ed counterfeit of the religion of Jesus was sus- 
tained by proud, licentious courts, and, in its 
turn, sustained them in all their aristocratic 
oppression of the poor, wielding against the 
crushed and the helpless all the energies of the 
most terrible superstition. Thus, under the 
veil of a coronation, was Christ crucified. 

The masses were doomed to ignorance by 
this execrable cheat which called itself Chris- 
tianity. The chains of feudal slavery were 
riveted anew by this false religion. All the 
terrors of inquisitorial torture, and all the en- 
ergies of divine retribution, were invoked by 
mercenary priests against any one who should 
attempt to break his chains, or against any 
sympathizing heart which should dare to plead 
the cause of the poor against the rich, of the 
weak against the strong. 

Thus lingering ages passed away, during 
which & false Christianity was the impregnable 
bulwark reared by haughty insolence and dom- 
ineering pride against human progress ; and 



106 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

though during the Dark Ages there were many 
individuals in the cabins of poverty, and some 
few even in regal palaces, who walked humbly 
with God, the Church as an organization of the 
state, Papal Christianity as moulded and wield- 
ed by kings and courts, became the great over- 
shadowing oppressor of the nations, darkening 
Europe with its gloom. 

But Christianity sweeps all this spirit of op- 
pression into a resurrectionless grave. Plant- 
ing itself upon the great principle of man's 
brotherhood, it demands of every man that he 
shall love his neighbor as himself, and that he 
shall do to others as he would that others 
should do to him; and this principle is to guide 
him in reference to all of the human family. 
In his view, there is to be neither Jew nor Sa- 
maritan, rich nor poor, bond nor free. His 
neighbor, of whatever condition, is his brother, 
whether he be red as a ruby, yellow as gold, 
tawny as bronze, black as ebony, or white as 
the drifted snow. 

The denomination to which a Christian shall 
belong is, of course, a question very unessen- 
tial. As a matter of fact, this question is gen- 
erally settled by accidental or social considera- 
tions. We fall naturally into those divisions 
of the Church militant where we find ourselves 



THE WANT OF THE WOELD. 107 

by birth and parental relations, or we unite 
with those friends who are of congenial sym- 
pathies and tastes. In every denomination 
you can find those who are a disgrace to the 
cause of Christ. There was a Judas even 
among the apostles. In every Christian de- 
nomination you find those who are burning 
and shining lights in the world, who live the 
life of the righteous, and die the death of the 
righteous, and go home to glory. "In every 
nation, he that feareth God and doeth right- 
eousness is accepted of him." 

In a church-yard in Germany there is a 
grave-stone bearing this inscription: "Look not 
mournfully upon the past ; it cometh not back 
again. Wisely improve the present; it is thine. 
Go forth and meet the shadowy future without 
fear and with a manly heart." 

This is true Christian philosophy ; and it is 
by the sweep of these genial and all-compre- 
hensive principles that Christianity is alike 
adapted to every conceivable condition of hu- 
manity. We are informed that upon a gala- 
day in the palace of Versailles, in the midst of 
one of the most imposing scenes of courtly pa- 
geantry this earth has ever witnessed, the maid- 
en daughter of a duke entered, sweeping the 
polished floor with her silken train, and radiant 



108 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

with almost unearthly beauty. One of the 
spectators exclaimed, "Ma foi, quelle destinee, 
jeune, riche, joli, et une duchesse!" — my faith, 
what a destiny, young, rich, beautiful, and a duch- 
ess !" 

No one will deny that even in these hours 
of youth, and opulence, and admiration, the 
consciousness that God was her friend, and 
that with her the journey of life would termi- 
nate by entrance at the golden gates, would add 
immeasurably to her joy. A few years, how- 
ever, only passed away when revolutions came. 
Father and mother perished on the guillotine, 
property was confiscated, and the child of op- 
ulence and rank, in friendlessness and poverty, 
was driven into exile. The bloom of youth 
vanished as, in a foreign land, want and woe 
traced their haggard lineaments upon that once 
beautiful cheek and brow. Lingering years of 
grief conducted her to a dying bed upon a pal- 
let of straw. Where is there for her now any 
solace but in Christianity ? 

And how ample to all the wants of her 
heart in this dread hour are the teachings of 
the Gospel! "Christ has died for you, life- 
weary, woe-stricken sister. The Spirit is ready 
to renew and sanctify your heart. Trust in 
Jesus, and heaven's gates shall be opened to 



THE WANT OF THE WORLD. 109 

you, and you shall enter in and sigh no more 
forever." 

Eagerly she embraces the Gospel. Joy, to 
which she has so long been a stranger, beams 
from her dying eye. A smile plays around 
her pallid cheek. " Lord Jesus," she says, " re- 
ceive my spirit ;" and she is gone. 

"I see an angel mounting high 
Amid the glories of the sky ; 
On gorgeous wing 
Of cherubim 
She sweeps the heavenly plains. 

Celestial pearls her brow impress, 
Kobes of ethereal dye invest 

Her fairy form, 

Which sweeps along 
Where joy forever reigns." 

No matter \yhat our condition in life, there 
is never an hour in which religion would not 
make us more happy than we otherwise should 
be, and to us all hours are coming in which 
nothing but religion can save us from irre- 
trievable anguish ; and the simplicity of the re- 
quirements of religion are such that no man 
need be perplexed respecting the principle of 
duty. We find Christians in the very darkest 
and most corrupt ages of the Church; and even 
in ages and realms which Christianity has not 
penetrated we do here and there find individ- 



110 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

uals who, groping their way only by the light 
of nature, seem to "fear God and do righteous- 
ness," and thus, as God assures us, are accepted 
of him. 

Let us retrace the march of history to periods 
anterior to the advent of Christ. We enter 
Greece, the land of genius, eloquence, and song, 
as yet unvisited by any ray of revealed light. 
There we meet, in the Acropolis, beneath the 
dome of the Pantheon, or teaching in the groves 
of Academus, Socrates, a devout man, hunger- 
ing and thirsting for more knowledge of God. 
He has never heard of the promised Messiah. 
His soul yearns for the light of immortality, 
and for some guide to lead his steps to the 
eternal throne. 

And yet Socrates every day walks with God, 
feeling after him, and breathing fervent pray- 
ers for his presence and his blessing. The 
graphic pen of Grecian history reveals him to 
us surrounded by a group of the young men 
of Athens, who are listening eagerly to his 
teachings. Taking the highest standard of 
right which God has presented to his mind — 
the law of conscience, to which Paul declares 
that those unenlightened by revelation are 
alone amenable — he urges the passion-tossed, 
temptation-tried young men around him to live 



THE WANT OF THE WOULD. Ill 

true to their noblest instincts, and to strive to 
soar to companionship with God. 

"When I hear Socrates," writes Alcibiades, 
one of his pupils, "lam charmed and fettered. 
My inmost soul is stung by his words, and I 
am indignant at my own rude and ignoble 
character. I weep tears of bitterness to think 
how vain and unworthy is the life I lead. Nor 
am I the only one that weeps like a child. 
Many are affected in the same way." 

Oh, Socrates, thou art called a pagan. Are 
there not many living in the blaze of Christian 
light who will stand rebuked by thee at God's 
bar? How many thousands are there in Eu- 
rope and America, upon whose minds is pour- 
ed the full flood of Gospel truth, who " have 
only a God to swear by, but no God to pray 
to?" As, in the day of judgment, they shall 
pass away with the wailing throng, may they 
not see Socrates, radiant with joy, winged for 
heaven, as the Judge shall say, 

" Well done, good and faithful servant ; thou 
hast been faithful over a few things, I will 
make thee ruler over many things. Enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord." 

More than two thousand years ago this great 
and good man taught, amid the temples and 
the shrines of idolatrous Greece, the highest 



112 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

principles of morals and natural theology his 
mind could attain. He declared himself to be 
commissioned, by an inward movement and 
call from God, to rebuke sin, and to plead with 
his fellow-men to practice virtue, and to seek 
divine knowledge through all the avenues the 
mind could explore. In the account which 
Xenophon, himself a pagan, gives of this illus- 
trious man, he says : 

" To the good providence of God Socrates 
referred all human blessings. He maintained 
that the Deity knows every thought ; and that 
it is the sacred duty of men to worship him 
with all their powers, and to strive in all things 
to do his will." 

The definition of piety which Socrates gives 
is beautiful and all-comprehensive. We know 
not where, outside of revelation, to find a defi- 
nition more perfect. 

" Piety," says Socrates, "is the endeavor to 
make one's self and all others as perfect as pos- 
sible." 

Eeader, you who have heard of a Savior's 
love, you who walk in the full blaze of Chris- 
tianity's meridian day, you who have heard of 
the resurrection, and final judgment, and eter- 
nal retribution, have you this piety? Is this 
the standard of your life? Can you look up 
to God's throne and say, 



THE WANT OF THE WORLD. 113 

" O Lord, thou dost know that it is my de- 
sire, my prayer, my earnest endeavor to make 
myself and all whom I can influence as perfect 
as possible?" 

If not, how inglorious is your life ! how in- 
excusable is your sin ! May it not indeed be 
" more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day 
of judgment than for you?" 

Socrates taught the young men, who ever 
crowded around him, eagerly receiving his in- 
structions, to offer daily the prayer, 

"0 God, give us all good, whether we ask 
it or not. Save us from all evil. Bless our 
good actions, and reward them with success 
and happiness." 

In imagination we can see some noble young 
man, with thoughtful, pensive air, wandering 
amid the shrines and idol statuary of the Par- 
thenon, regardless of mythological legends, and 
of all the images of gold and marble which 
crowd the niches around him, and with clasp- 
ed hands and moistened eye breathing this 
prayer to that " unknown God," whose power 
and Godhead are only revealed to him through 
the light of nature. And then there comes to 
us from the Gospel of Christ a voice, which 
says, 

"God is no respecter of persons; but in 
H 



114 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

every nation, he that feareth him and worketh 
righteousness is accepted with him." 

May not the Christian hope to meet in heav- 
en some of the disciples of this devout teacher, 
whose hearts were all ready to receive Christ 
so soon as he should be revealed to them? The 
spirit breathed in these instructions and this 
prayer is, indeed, the very spirit of Christiani- 
ty. It is truly the essence of Christianity that 
every man should live according to the highest 
law of truth and duty revealed to him. But 
you who read this book have a wiser than Soc- 
rates to illumine your mind, and to teach you 
to pray. Contemplate the prayer which our 
Lord has taught his disciples, the most sublime 
and comprehensive utterance to be found in 
earthly language : 

" Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed 
be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will 
be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us 
this day our daily bread. And forgive us our 
debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us 
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." 

Have you imbibed the spirit of this prayer ? 
Does it ascend daily from your lips ? Are you 
living in the light of these petitions? It is 
moral worth which makes the man in the sight 
of God ; and all men, however situated, may 



THE WANT OF THE WORLD. 115 

attain that worth. In fact, it is more frequent- 
ly attained in the school of deprivation, hard- 
ship, and suffering than under any other teach- 
ing. 

A Humboldt may be crossing the ocean. He 
contemplates the majestic waste of waters with 
the eye of a philosopher, sounds its depths, 
measures its expanse, and analyzes its constit- 
uent elements. Night comes. He looks upon 
the stars. Every constellation is familiar to 
him. He knows their names, their relative po- 
sitions, and can trace the path of the sun with 
unerring precision through the majestic abysses 
of space. He descends to his state-room, and, 
with diagram and algebraic formula, records 
the observations of the day — a record which 
perhaps elicits the admiration of the whole 
philosophic world. All this he may do with 
about as little moral elevation of soul, as little 
moral sensibility, as is possessed by the steam- 
engine which drives the majestic ship over the 
waves. 

But far up among the shrouds, clinging to 
the cordage, there is a sailor-boy, dressed in the 
coarse garb of toil, of humble parentage, of lim- 
ited education. The philosopher hardly re- 
gards him as a brother of the human family. 
The boy has just finished the work for which he 



116 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

has climbed the spars. Grasping the shrouds, 
he looks up to the gorgeous canopy above him, 
glittering with the mansions of God. There 
he sees his Father's home. There he sees the 
abode of angels. The instructions he has re- 
ceived from his mother's lips rush upon his 
soul. His whole moral nature is moved. His 
eyes are dim with tears, and his voice is choked 
with emotion, as he repeats the hymn taught 
him in the Sabbath-school : 

"Ye stars are but the shining dust 
Of our divine abode, 
The pavements of those heavenly courts 
Where I shall see my God." 

Who is the greater, the nobler, in the sight 
of angels, the philosopher with his diagrams, 
or the boy with his God ? 

A black cloud appears in the west. Flashes 
of lightning illumine the ocean. Crashing thun- 
der causes the ship to tremble in every timber; 
and the gigantic billows sweep by as if goaded 
to madness by the demon of the storm. The 
philosopher, the mere philosopher, hastens on 
deck to witness the phenomenon. With elec- 
trometer in hand, he experiments upon the elec- 
tric fluid; he notices the flash and listens to 
the thunder, and carefully computes the speed 
with which the waves are driven. In all this 



THE WANT OF THE WORLD. 117 

lie sees but the forces of nature — electric fluid, 
aerial vibrations, atmospheric energies ; blind, 
blind nature alone converses with his blinded 
soul. Again the benighted philosopher records 
his observations, and again, godless, falls asleep. 
The Christian sailor-boy stands on the deck 
through the storm in his midnight watch. He 
knows nothing of the scientific speculations 
which alone engross the soul of the philoso- 
pher. But God walks with him as he paces 
the deck — God, his father, his companion, his 
friend — God, who loves him, and has adopted 
him as his own child. In the roaring thunder, 
in the gleaming lightning, in the heaving, foam- 
ing, tumultuous ocean, he sees, and hears, and 
feels the presence and the power of God. 
Though he may not have Byronic or Miltonic 
skill to give utterance to his emotions, still 
those emotions, the most enriching and enno- 
bling, may none the less pervade his soul. As 
he looks out upon the storm and exclaims, 

"On cherubim and seraphim 
Full royally he rode, 
And on the wings of mighty winds 
Came flying all abroad," 

he feels that God is with him, and he is pu- 
rified, inspired, and ennobled by his presence. 
Now which of these two is the greater? Which 



118 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

is endowed with, the loftiest spirit? Upon 
which soul descends, radiant from above, in 
fullest measure, the love of celestial choirs— 
upon the cold, heartless, prayerless, godless phi- 
losopher, whose whole moral nature has been 
starved and shriveled, as he has fed only upon 
the husks of science, or upon the warm-heart- 
ed, full-souled, God-loving sailor-boy, all unlet- 
tered as he is, who in a God lives, and moves, 
and has his being?" 

It is thus that all that is ennobling in the 
teachings of Christianity may come home even 
to the unlettered mind. We would by no 
means speak disparagingly of the highest at- 
tainments of science ; but it does not require 
acquaintance with Greek and Eoman classics 
for one to feel God's presence in the grand- 
eur of the midnight storm. One may not be 
able to understand all the revelations found in 
Cosmos, or to comprehend the demonstrations 
of La Place, and yet he may read, and compre- 
hend with intensest appreciation, the inscrip- 
tions God has registered on billowy ocean, 
earth, and spangled sky. He may interpret, 
with vastly more than philosophical acumen, 
all the voices of nature, when God speaks in 
the thunder, or breathes his anthems in the 
storm-swept forest or the resounding surge. 



THE WANT OF THE WOELD. 119 

Earthly science alone can decipher the hie- 
roglyphics which Assyrian or Egyptian has 
carved on obelisk or mausoleum ; but there is 
a nobler science, heaven -born, God -taught, 
which enables the Christian, even unlettered 
though he be, to decipher those more sublime 
characters which the finger of God has every 
where carved, on craggy mountain and verdant 
valley, on prairie and forest ; every where, ev- 
ery where — on ocean, earth, and sky. The 
loving heart ever dwells in companionship and 
communion with God. 



120 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE ENNOBLING- INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN* 
ITY. 

The Christian Nobleman. — Great Diversities of human Con- 
dition. — Companionship with God. — The two Farmers. — 
Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night. — The Elevation which 
Consciousness of Possession gives. — Uncle Tom. — The In- 
heritance of the Christian. — Visions at Death. — Janeway. 
— The Martyr Stephen. — The true Spirit of Religion. — 
Importance of Doctrines ; of Forms. — The Guilt of cor- 
rupting Christianity. 

It was remarked by an accurate and philo- 
sophical observer of mankind that humanity- 
had perhaps attained its highest development 
in the person and character of the intellectual, 
polished, Christian English nobleman. We 
can easily see, in the advantages which such a 
man may. have enjoyed, the potent influences 
which have given him his elevation. Born in 
an ancestral castle, where every thing is beau- 
tiful and tasteful around him ; where the high- 
est art ministers to his wants ; where, from in- 
fancy, he never hears a rude word, or witnesses 
an action which the highest refinement has not 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 121 

gilded, lie almost necessarily acquires the bear- 
ing of a polished gentleman, with that inde- 
scribable charm of high breeding which some- 
times, indeed, seems instinctive in the lowly 
born, but which is generally the result of long 
training and careful culture. 

Blessed with pious parentage, and witness- 
ing, from his infancy, the exhibition of religion 
in its most attractive form — God being ever 
recognized in the household in morning and 
evening prayer, and in every event of life, joy- 
ous or afflictive — his appetites and passions are 
early checked and brought under Christian re- 
straint, so that they do not acquire unnatural 
vigor ; and when, through the influences of the 
Holy Spirit, he becomes an humble disciple of 
Jesus Christ, he has but little to unlearn. 

In mental culture he is alike favored. The 
wealth of a dukedom supplies him with tutors 
of the highest attainments in every branch of 
human learning. The tour of Europe is before 
him, and he passes through cathedrals of the 
most imposing architecture, through galleries 
of art, and over fields of renown, with scholars 
of the highest genius accompanying him, to 
unfold to his mind, with these imposing illus- 
trations, all the treasures of history, and sci- 
ence, and art. Thus enriched with all mental 



122 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

and moral culture, lie takes His seat, by right 
of birth, in the Parliament of Great Britain, 
and aids in wielding a sceptre whose power 
reaches to the utmost limits of our globe. 

Under such influences men have been some- 
times trained to such a character of refinement, 
intelligence, and piety as to make them pat- 
terns of humanity. Though such cases are 
very, very uncommon, still there have been such 
cases ; and when you find such a man, you 
meet with that rare combination of excellencies, 
physical, intellectual, and moral, which excites 
universal admiration. 

It is a mystery, never in this world to be ex- 
plained, why God has allowed so much diversi- 
ty in the privileges of his children. That there 
is a very great difference can not be denied. 
But perhaps some reader says, It is only tanta- 
lizing to remind me of these privileges of the 
rich and the great, which I never have enjoy- 
ed and never can enjoy. The cradle of my in- 
fancy was not rocked in a ducal chateau. The 
imperfect education I possess has been attained 
through toil and discouragements. The busi- 
ness of my life exposes me constantly to the 
society of those who are hostile to religion. I 
am compelled to hear oaths, and to witness vice 
in every loathsome form ; and it is only by a 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 123 

continued struggle against bad habits which. I 
have formed, and against infirmities of my na- 
ture, in which I have long indulged, until they 
have become too strong almost even for divine 
grace to conquer, that I can make any progress 
in holiness. 

But, in reply, it may b6 remarked that, great 
as the diversity of privilege in this world un- 
deniably is, it is not so great as is sometimes 
imagined. True elevation of soul — that which 
wins God's regard — may exist independently 
of graceful movements in the drawing-room. 
Moral nobility consists not in an acquaintance 
with the technicalities of science, with the no- 
menclature of chemistry, with familiarity with 
the classification of plants and shells. 

Lord Byron dwelt in a beautiful villa upon 
the heights near Genoa. The windows of his 
chateau overlooked the blue Mediterranean, 
and opened before him gorgeous vistas of the 
snow-capped Alps. He was endowed with 
most exalted genius, and was in the possession 
of youth, health, wealth, and world-wide re- 
nown ; but his soul was degraded, guilty, and 
miserable. Nature had no aspect of beauty 
and no song of melody which could cheer his 
spirit. If you look through smoked glass, the 
loveliest landscape is draped in mourning, but 



124 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

the prism throws all the hues of the rainbow 
upon wilds dreary and desolate. Thus the joy- 
ful soul can spread beauty over every expanse, 
while a guilty and wretched spirit will shroud 
a June morning and an Eden landscape in a 
sepulchral pall. 

The man who livds in companionship with 
God is buoyed up, as on angel pinions, above 
fogs and clouds, into the region of serene and 
eternal sunshine. As in a balloon, he looks 
down upon this globe, this ant-hill, with its busy 
runnings to and fro, and up, up, to the intermi- 
nable expanse, where there are thrones, man- 
sions, celestial powers. The soul expands with 
lofty, ennobling thought, and with its expan- 
sion swells the brain ; and there beams forth, 
often even here below, from sparkling eye and 
cheek, and expressive lip, the lineaments of one 
who is God's son, a prince of celestial blood, the 
heir to an immortal crown, here, in masquerade, 
journeying for a season incognito ere he ascends 
to his inheritance. 

Two farmers toil side by side. The one has 
no God. He is merely of the earth, earthy, 
with no inspiring motive but to fill his bin and 
feed his cattle. Night comes, perhaps sublime 
with storms, wrecking earth and sky. He sits 
listless by his fire ; the kitten purs upon the 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 125 

rug ; and he, as soulless, as prayerless, as god- 
less, dozes in his chair. The hour for retire- 
ment comes. Like the horse at the manger, 
and the ox in the stall, he lies down to sleep 
without the slightest recognition of a heavenly 
Father. This man, created but little lower 
than the angels, has thus fallen to a spiritual 
level with the cattle he feeds. 

Look at his neighbor. He also has toiled all 
the day long, his eyes on the earth, his soul in 
heaven. As by the sweat of his brow he has 
been earning his daily bread, he has been cheer- 
ed by visions of glory to come. Perchance he 
read in his morning prayer, 

" Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; and 
it hath not yet appeared what we shall be ; but 
we know that when He shall appear we shall 
be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 

As in the close of a dark autumnal day, of 
clouds and floods, and crashing thunder, the 
sun breaks through the vaporous gloom, and, 
piercing the fissures, gilds forest, and meadow, 
and mountain with a strange glory, the harbin- 
ger of a bright to-morrow, so does the Christian 
catch glimpses, now brilliant, now faint, day by 
day, of ethereal bliss. His soul, by these vis- 
ions, is elevated, ennobled. He has something 
glorious to live for. His soul is lifted up, and 



126 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

he mounts, as upon eagle's wings, to his Fa- 
ther's home, where he is to return after life's 
journeyings, to go no more out forever. 

How beautiful the description Burns gives 
of the Christian " Cotter's Saturday Night!" 

"The cheerful supper done, with serious face 
They round the fireside form a circle wide ; 
The sire turns o'er with patriarchal grace 
The big hall-Bible, once his father's pride ; 
His bonnet reverently is laid aside, 
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare ; 

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide. 
He reads a portion with judicious care ; 
And, Let us worship God, he says, with solemn air. 

Then kneeling down to heaven's eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing, 

That thus they all shall meet in future days : 

There ever bask in uncreated rays, 
No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, 

Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
In such society, yet still more dear, 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere." 

Thus does piety stamp nobility upon the 
soul of man, and place the impress of his own 
grandeur upon every employment and every 
condition. Thus may religion, with its majes- 
tic revelations and its sublimities of hope, raise 
the plow-boy above the undevout philosopher. 
His thoughts wander through eternity, and cir- 



r 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 127 

cle around the throne of God. In every star 
in the sky he sees a mansion which he hopes 
yet to visit. Thus does God give to his sons 
and daughters, though in humble walks of life, 
intellectual joys and expansion of thought 
which others know not of. 

There is many an unspoken poem sung in 
the soul of the Christian which neither Byron 
nor Shelley could comprehend. There is many 
a celestial tune played by the fingers of God 
on the harp-strings of the regenerated spirit, 
which vibrate sweetly on angels' ears and wake 
the melodies of heaven. 

All men have noticed that elevation of char- 
acter which the consciousness of possession 
tends to give. Poverty is proverbially depress- 
ing. The man who is sliding down into the 
vale of want and dependence can not cherish 
that elation of spirits which lie feels who is 
borne upward and onward by the crested bil- 
lows of prosperity. 

The American slave, toiling from the cradle 
to the grave simply as a laborer, with no pos- 
sessions — with absolutely nothing which he can 
call his own — develops a very different charac- 
ter from that of the New England farmer, who, 
from his door-sill, can look upon broad acres, 
and say "They are mine!" There is eleva- 



128 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

tion of character, conscious dignity, promoted 
by the sense of ownership. This spirit, unreg- 
ulated by instinctive propriety or the teachings 
of religion, may develop a proud and haughty 
bearing, a disposition to assume consequential 
airs, and to look down upon the more lowly. 
But this perversion of the principle shows its 
strength and its tendency. 

One of the most attractive creations of moral 
loveliness which literature has produced is un- 
questionably the character of " Uncle Tom," 
in his lowly cabin. There are millions of 
hearts, in the highest circles of wealth and in- 
tellect, throbbing with admiration of that noble 
specimen of Christ-like manhood. Uncle Tom 
is, in the heart of the world, a real character, 
as much so as Abraham or Daniel. He ceases 
to be an imaginary being because he becomes 
an incarnation of the soul's highest grandeur, 
a moral grandeur from which the soul can look 
loftily down upon all material deprivations and 
sufferings. 

Now contemplate the value of a Christian 
hope as a possession. Suppose the adversary 
had said to this poor slave, "Sell me your 
Christian hope, and I will give you in exchange 
your freedom." " No !" would Uncle Tom say ; 
" though earthly freedom is the greatest of 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 

earthly blessings, my Christian hope makes me 
a freeman in Christ forever. Think you I 
would barter eternal freedom for that which 
terminates at death, and death may come in an 
hour?" 

The adversary takes him to the thronged 
city, shows him a block of marble stores, and 
says, " The rent of these will secure you a clear 
income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. 
I will give you the title-deed to them all, in 
addition to your freedom, in exchange for your 
treasure in heaven." 

"No," exclaims the penniless slave, "I would 
not exchange my heavenly inheritance for all 
the buildings in all the cities on this globe. 
All this wealth would soon be only available 
to purchase for me a gilded coffin and an am- 
bitious tomb." 

The adversary makes one more attempt. He 
takes the Christian slave to the gorgeous castle 
which the wealth and the labor of ages have 
reared. There it stands, a majestic pile, in all 
its baronial splendor, with turret, and battle- 
ment, and tower; with its gorgeous saloons, 
gilded ceilings, galleries of art, and banqueting 
halls, where hundreds of guests may move in 
freedom. The massive fabric rises from the 
midst of a velvet lawn, approached through 
I 



130 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

avenues of ancient oaks ; boats float upon the 
silver lake; the wide-spread park is stocked 
with, deer; graveled paths wind through the 
most enchanting scenery nature and art com- 
bined can create. The stables are filled with 
horses and carriages ; and in government funds 
enough is invested to maintain, regardless of 
expense, all this splendor. 

"All this," says the adversary, " shall be 
yours, in exchange for your hopes of heaven." 

The poor slave turns with contempt from 
the ignoble offer. "What," he exclaims, "is 
ducal castle or regal palace compared with the 
mansion God has reared for me, his child, in 
the skies ? "What are the lawns, and parks, 
and silver lakes of earth compared with the 
green pastures and still waters of my heavenly 
home ? The treasures which I feel assured are 
laid up for me in heaven, I would not barter 
for all the power, and wealth, and rank earth 
has ever known." 

Such are the possessions of the Christian. 
Such is the property in reserve for the sons 
and daughters of God. There is no danger of 
forming too high an estimate of its value and 
its splendor. Imagination is not powerful 
enough to grasp the view. The Christian is 
God's child — God's heir. Creation, limitless 



INFLUENCE OF CHEISTIANITY. 131 

creation, is his father's house, and he, God's 
son, is to inherit all. 

This thought, even feebly embraced, must 
ennoble, and it does ennoble. Such is the in- 
fluence of religion — an influence tending to el- 
evate the man to the angel, the finite to the in- 
finite, the human to the divine. 

No one can have been often at tfre dying 
bed without at times witnessing a remarkable 
phenomenon, as if a vision of heaven were 
opening upon the eye of the dying even be- 
fore the spirit has left the body. Not nnfre- 
quently, just before the soul takes its depart- 
ure, it seems to catch a glimpse of the world 
into which it is about to enter. There is a 
look of amazement, there are expressions of 
surprise, and a declaration that the scene open- 
ing to the eye of the spirit is such as no mor- 
tal tongue can describe. Innumerable illustra- 
tions of this fact might be introduced. The de- 
voted John Janeway, as he was breathing his 
last, said to the friends who stood around his 
bed, 

" Oh that I could let you know what I now 
feel ! oh that I could show you what I see ! Oh, 
the glory, the unspeakable glory which I be- 
hold! My heart is full. The arms of my 
blessed Savior are open to embrace me. The 



132 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

angels stand ready to carry my soul into his 
bosom. Oh, did you but see what I see, you 
would all cry out, 'Come, Lord Jesus, come 
quickly !'." 

The philosophic Dr. Burgess, commenting 
upon this subject, says, 

"We must not be bold in speaking of what 
none but the dying can have seen and felt ; 
but certainly there is enough to persuade us 
that many of those who, with clear minds and 
organs unoppressed, approach the shadowy bar- 
riers between the two worlds, do breathe some 
airs from that which is beyond ; have a solemn, 
joyous experience, till then, in that degree, 
quite unknown; and perceive, as if within a 
curtain, the motions of forms whose outlines 
and features they can not discern." 

It was such a vision which led the martyr 
Stephen to exclaim, " Behold, I see the heav- 
ens opened, and the Son of Man standing on 
the right hand of God!" 

How glorious such a termination of the con- 
flict of life ! All cares, and toils, and griefs are 
ended. The sights of earth are vanishing from 
the eye ; the sounds of earth are fading from 
the ear ; but the eye and the ear of the soul 
are opened to unimagined glories. The songs 
of seraphim flood the air. The splendors of 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 133 

heaven are unveiled, as celestial forms crowd 
the skies on purpled wings. The mansions 
which Almighty skill has reared rise sublime- 
ly upon the view. The paradise which God's 
hand tills waves its foliage, blushes with its 
fruits and flowers, and breathes its perfume. 
Heaven's meadows, and lakes, and hills expand 
before the enlarging vision, thronged with the 
resplendent peerage of God's courts. Death 
does thus indeed lose its terror, and becomes 
the herald of victory and of life. 

The ennobling power of religion is seen in 
its transforming wicked men to be meet for the 
inheritance of the saints in light. Every hu- 
man heart requires a great change from its 
natural condition to prepare it for introduction 
to such companionship and such scenes. In 
the vast majority of the human family we can 
see, even with our imperfect vision, the neces- 
sity for this change. Some meet with it at so 
early a period of childhood that they seem to 
be sanctified from their birth. 

But it is this change from sin to holiness, 
from regardlessness of God to the earnest de- 
sire to become every thing that is pleasing in 
his sight — it is this change which the interests 
of humanity implore with an incessant cry, 
and which Christianity alone secures. It is sin 



134 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

•which curses our world with woes unnumber- 
ed. It is holiness alone which can cause the 
wilderness to bud, and the desert to blossom as 
the rose. 

Doctrines, correct doctrines, are important, 
but only important so far as they promote this 
life of holiness. Faith is as valueless as a 
counterfeit bill if it be not redeemable in the 
solid gold of good works — of a life hid with 
Christ in God ; or, perhaps, it would be more 
correct to say that faith, Christian faith, like 
love, is that inspirer of the soul from which 
proceedeth every thing that is good. If this 
purpose be not accomplished, there is no faith. 
"Faith without works is dead," and "works" 
without " faith" are an impossibility. You can 
not love God unless you believe there is a God. 
You can not repent of sin unless you believe 
that sin is hateful. You can not trust in Je- 
sus unless you believe that he is your atoning 
Savior. You can not pray, " Create in me a 
clean heart, and renew a right spirit within 
me," unless you believe that it is necessary to 
be "born again of the Holy Spirit." 

Ceremonial rites are important in Church 
organizations, in forms of worship, as aids to 
devotion, but only important so far as they 
make men good men — loving God, their father, 



INFLUENCE OF CHKISTIANITY. 135 

loving man, their brother. Forms are but the 
scaffolding used temporarily in constructing 
the temple ; essential as means for the attain- 
ment of important ends, but valueless in them- 
selves. 

Baptisms and sacraments are important, in- 
finitely important; divinely appointed to im- 
press the soul with the value of eternal things, 
and to rouse it to holy zeal; but if baptisms 
and sacraments become dead forms, they are 
of no more avail than the Indian's war-dance, 
or the genuflections of the idolater before his 
feathered god. 

The object of Christianity is to make men 
good men, angelic in character, possessing the 
spirit of Jesus Christ, that God's will may be 
done in earth as in heaven. Then will wars 
cease, and all despotisms melt away into love. 
Oppression will no longer trample upon its 
victims. Fraud will be heard of no more. All 
nations shall then sing one song ; all flags shall 
then blend in friendly interminglings, and ev- 
ery hand shall present the open palm of char- 
ity, and shall close only in the warm grasp of 
fraternal greetings. 

There can be no peace in this world until all 
men meet this change. So soon as the spirit 
of Christ reigns in all hearts, our sorrows will 



136 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

cease. There can be no infidelity worse than 
that which makes Christianity the cloak of op- 
pressive actions ; which sanctimoniously says, 
"Lord, Lord," and yet obeys not God's will. 
It was this hypocrisy which led our Savior to 
utter that most terrible of all his denuncia- 
tions, 

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hyp- 
ocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make 
one proselyte ; and when he is made, ye make 
him two-fold more the child of hell than your- 
selves." 

There can be no crime more dreadful, no 
guilt of a more crimson dye, than to pervert 
the teachings of Christianity to the upholding 
of oppression, and to the strengthening of the 
influences of extortion and violence. There 
can be no perversion of God's will more crim- 
inal, no reproach upon the character of our 
heavenly Father more unpardonable, than to 
represent the religion he has given to mankind 
to consist in creeds, and rituals, and formal ob- 
servances, and not in "doing justly, loving mer- 
cy, and walking humbly with God." 

Christianity is the religion for the world — 
for all times, all nations, all tongues — for hu- 
manity, the great brotherhood of man. How 
expansive and comprehensive this scheme! 



INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 137 

Look at it through the most powerful telescopes 
of faith, and it presents a constellation of inef- 
fable glories. Examine it with the most pene- 
trating microscopes of intellectual acumen, and 
it is still transcendently beautiful. It is a re- 
ligion to live by. Conscience approves it. Eea- 
son sanctions it. Faith sustains it. It is a re- 
ligion to die by. No man can doubt, in a dy- 
ing hour, that his best preparation for that hour 
is the consciousness that, penitent for sin and 
trusting in the Savior, he has done what he 
could to promote the purity of heart and life 
of every member of the human family. 

This is the sublime simplicity and consum- 
mate grandeur of Christianity ; the religion for 
earth and for heaven, for the blooming child 
and for the hoary head, for the bridal and the 
funeral, for the morning of smiles and the night 
of tears ; it is the religion for time, with all its 
vicissitudes, and for eternity, with all its possi- 
bilities of change. 

" Oh brother man, fold to thy heart thy brother ; 
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there. 
To worship rightly is to love each other ; 

Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer." 



138 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Various and discordant Systems of Religion. — The Inward 
Witness. — Altamont. — Dr. Payson. — Inefficiency of Ar- 
gument. — Experimental Testimony. — The Hunger of the 
Soul. — Legend of Pontius Pilate. — Sublime Revelations 
of Christianity.— External Evidences unavailable for most 
Christians. — Nature of the experimental Evidence. — The 
most convincing Argument. — Hume. — Voltaire. — Byron. 
— Death-bed of Henry Clay. 

It is said that, at the time of the birth of our 
Savior, there were worshiped, within the limits 
of the Eoman empire, thirty thousand gods. 
All the nations and tribes then inhabiting the 
world had their distinct deities and their pe- 
culiar forms of religion. These systems were, 
many of them, sustained by the most dazzling 
splendor of temples and ceremonies. Learn- 
ing and refinement contributed all their attrac- 
tions to embellish these shrines, and poetry has 
never soared to higher flights or eloquence ut- 
tered more impassioned strains than in eulo- 
gizing the Eoman gods. 

Our Savior declared all these systems to be 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 139 

false, wicked, and fatal. For so doing he was 
accused of blasphemy, and punished with death. 
Still the new religion proclaimed by Christ was 
embraced by thousands. But how could these 
Christians know, with any certainty, that their 
faith was not also a delusion? There were 
around them innumerable forms of religion, ad- 
vocated by the wise and embraced by the pow- 
erful. Christianity takes its place in the midst 
of them all. How can any one be assured that 
all these other systems are false and that Chris- 
tianity only is true ? 

Or let us travel down the path of eighteen 
centuries to the present day. All these pagan 
systems have vanished before the religion of 
Christ. We, nursed from childhood in the 
forms of Christianity, take it for granted that 
our religion is divine. We embrace it, and 
feel assured that our sins are forgiven, and that 
we are accepted of God. How can we know 
that this is not all a delusion ? 

It is said that there have been miracles per- 
formed in attestation of the truth of Christian- 
ity; but we have not seen them performed. 
But, it is said, we have the testimony of eye- 
witnesses to that effect, testimony which is am- 
ple. Admitting this to be true, still, who are 
there, among the great mass of the community 



140 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

crowded with the cares and toils of life, who 
have the leisure or the mental culture which is 
essential to sift this testimony so as to solve 
the difficulties and to appreciate the cogency 
of the historic argument ? 

There is not one Christian in ten thousand 
who can prove that the books of the Bible were 
written at the time or by the persons by whom 
it is said that they were written, or who can 
make any satisfactory reply to the cavils of 
Yoltaire or the arguments of Hume. Indeed, 
there are comparatively few who can fully ap- 
preciate the force of Hume's philosophical ob- 
jection to miracles, or the acute refutation of 
that objection by Campbell, and Butler, and 
Chalmers. 

How, then, the inquiry remains, can the ma- 
jority of Christians be assured that Christian- 
ity is true? Are they Christians merely be- 
cause they have been born in a Christian coun- 
try ? Have they no better foundation for their 
faith than a Turk has for Mohammedanism, or 
a Hindoo for Buddhism ? 

The Bible itself answers this question in the 
assertion that " they who believe on the Son of 
God have the witness in themselves." As light 
is adapted to the eye, and sound to the ear, so 
is Christianity adapted to the soul of man. As 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 141 

we need no philosophical argument to prove 
that we can see or that we can hear, no more 
do we need such argument to prove that Chris- 
tianity is the great want and the great treasure 
of the soul. 

When some one intimated to the dying Al- 
tamont that there was no hell, he replied, " I 
know that there is a hell, for I feel its flame al- 
ready consuming me." 

Thus may the Christian say, "I know that 
there is a reality in religion, for I already feel 
its peace. The burden of sin is rolled from my 
heart. The inward assurance I have that, 
through penitence and trust in Jesus, my sins 
are forgiven, and God has accepted me as his 
child, is an inestimable reality, more precious 
than mines of gold. You need not attempt to 
prove to me that there is no heaven ; I already 
feel at times some of its genial glow. This 
peace of the soul, this repose of conscience, I 
do, as a matter of fact, enjoy. I know that I 
possess it. And, if this be not a reality, what 
is a reality ? I need this repose. I know that 
I have found it. "What more do I want ? It 
is impossible for any sophisms to discredit this 
witness within myself." 

When Dr. Payson was on his dying bed, he 
wrote, " Oh, my sister, my sister, could you but 



142 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

know what awaits the Christian — could you 
only know so much as I know, you could not 
refrain from rejoicing and even leaping for 
joy ! Labors, trials, troubles, would be nothing. 
You would rejoice in afflictions, and glory in 
tribulations, and, like Paul and Silas, sing God's 
praises in the darkest night and in the deepest 
dungeons." 

Argument has no power to overthrow such 
soul experiences. Christianity informs us that 
in the harmonious employment of our powers 
and passions to promote the happiness of man 
and the glory of God we shall find tranquillity 
and joy. The Christian says, 

"I have tried it, and it is true. I have the 
strongest of all possible evidence of the divine 
power of religion — the evidence of my own 
heart. For six thousand years the inhabitants 
of this world have been in vain searching for 
happiness. They have pursued almost every 
conceivable object; they have run in almost 
every path, and have found only disappoint- 
ment. The Epicureans, renouncing the doc- 
trine of the illustrious founder of their sect, 
that the greatest good consists in the happiness 
which springs from virtue, and is to be found 
in the peace and harmony of the soul with it- 
self, invited to the voluptuous indulgence in 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 143 

all sensual pleasures. The Stoics, also re- 
nouncing the precepts of Zeno, their founder — 
precepts probably borrowed from the Jewish 
Scriptures — endeavored to deaden the sense of 
sorrow by the paralysis of all the nerves of 
sensibility. Fame, gold, power, lust, all have 
had their votaries, who have only crowned 
themselves with thorns, and, in the anguish of 
disappointment, they have exclaimed, 'All is 
vanity and vexation of spirit.' " 

Christianity professes to inform us where we 
may find the highest degree of consolation and 
happiness consistent with our present fallen 
condition. The Christian says, 

"I have obeyed these teachings, and have 
found the promised peace, and it is a reality 
which I would not exchange for ten thousand 
worlds. The philosopher may as well attempt 
to prove that my ear is not pleased with har- 
mony, that my eye is not refreshed with beau- 
ty, that my sense of taste is not gratified by 
the peach or pear which melts upon my pal- 
ate, as to prove that my soul is not fed, and 
sustained, and strengthened by Christianity. 
The loveliness which entrances my eye, the 
songs which thrill upon my ear, the fruit so 
exquisite to my taste, may as well be pro- 
nounced delusions as that Christianity which 



144 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

meets and satisfies the highest wants of my 
soul ; and inasmuch as my soul is nobler than 
my body, so is the satisfaction of its cravings a 
more positive reality. Away, then, with cav- 
ils and skepticism. I have a witness within 
myself which puts them all to flight." 

The Christian knows that there is a reality 
in Christianity, because it has produced a real 
change in his own character. All sin has be- 
come the object of his abhorrence ; perfect ho- 
liness has become the absorbing object of his 
desire. Once there were particular sins against 
which he struggled, and others in which he not 
unwillingly indulged; but now he struggles 
against every known sin. Christianity is sub- 
duing and refining all his powers ; promoting 
within him peace, humility, contentment, devo- 
tion; bringing him into sweet reconciliation 
with himself and with God. 

The world has lost its dominion over- his 
heart. He is weaned from its gaudy pleas- 
ures. He feels that he is but a stranger, a pil- 
grim, a mere traveler through those exciting 
scenes which once engrossed all his interests. 
He sees others in hot pursuit of posts of hon- 
or, but he, in some degree, has overcome the 
world. The pride of life is vanquished. His 
home is in heaven; his treasures in heaven; 



EVIDENCES OF CHKISTIANITY. 145 

his heart in heaven. In affliction he has 
boundless sources of consolation. Eeproach 
he can bear ; poverty and pain he can submis- 
sively endure. Death has lost its sting, the 
grave its victory. A new principle is estab- 
lished in his heart, which enables him to tri- 
umph over temptations which once led him 
captive at their will. At times he can say re- 
joicingly and triumphantly, 

"Oh how glorious to be conscious 
Of a growing power within, 
Stronger than the rallying forces 
Of a charged and marshal'd sin!" 

That faith which has enabled him thus to 
overcome the world is its own best witness. 
This testimony rises above all external proof. 
It stands at his heart, uttering the accents of 
peace and quietness when gazing upon the dy- 
ing struggles of beloved friends, when proper- 
ty takes wings and flies away, when disease 
prostrates him upon a bed of pain, when revo- 
lutions agitate the world. Calmly he says, 
" My home and my treasures are in heaven ; of 
what shall I be afraid?" This is the inward 
witnessing of the Spirit, and cavils can not dis- 
prove its testimony. 

Every thing that has life has hunger, and the 
more vital the life the more vehement the hun- 
K 



146 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ger. The sickly plant asks but little. The 
lordly lion, gnawed by famine, utters a roar 
which shakes the hills. That mysterious prin- 
ciple called life, which no philosophy has yet 
been able to penetrate, is never self-sustaining ; 
it is always fed with nutriment from without. 
A tree or shrub has life, perhaps the lowest 
form. A brute animal has life, a higher form, 
demanding more and better food. The soul 
has life, eternal life, and it demands nourish- 
ment in quality and quantity corresponding 
with the purity and ceaselessness of its crav- 
ings. 

A tree may be fed with guano and ashes ; 
an animal can be fed with herbs or flesh ; but 
the soul, ethereal in its nature, demands ethe- 
real food. Its cry for nourishment is insatia- 
ble. Every one is conscious of that aching 
void which it is so difficult to find any thing 
to fill. The hunger of the soul has been the 
theme of ancient bards ; it has been the great 
problem of all philosophies, the burden of all 
literatures. "Oh where shall peace be found,' 7 
is the unceasing cry of humanity. 

Not only does the soul, as a whole, demand 
its appropriate food, but every separate attri- 
bute and faculty of the soul, whether intellect- 
ual or moral, must be thus fed. Our propen- 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 147 

sities, our moral sentiments, our intellectual 
powers, all grow by what they feed upon. 
Every generous deed strengthens and enlarges 
the faculty of generosity. Every exercise of 
forgiveness gives new vigor to the forgiving 
faculty. Every cherished emotion of kindness 
makes one's loving nature more capacious and 
all-embracing. 

A man may starve his imagination, his mem- 
ory, his reasoning powers, so that they shall 
sicken, and pine away, and die. He may starve 
every one of the noblest faculties of his soul, 
until they all shall be dry and withered as au- 
tumn leaves. There are men who seem, as to 
all practical purposes, to have no souls. They 
have degenerated into mere animals, and have 
become, apparently, incapable of faith, or peni- 
tence, or love. There is nothing left to which 
you can appeal. Their souls are starved and 
dead — " dead in trespasses and sins." 

God, who feeds the young ravens when they 
cry, and who supplies the cedars of Lebanon, 
the herbage of the prairie, and the moss of the 
mountain with their daily food, has not neglect- 
ed to make provision for the soul. 

In the heart of Switzerland there is a mount- 
ain called Mount Pilate, one of the most wild 
and gloomy eminences on the globe, black with 



148 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

fathomless gulfs, and gloomy firs, and storm- 
battered crags, around which the carrion vul- 
ture, the most ill-omened of birds, soars and 
screams. The peasants, who at times trem- 
blingly climb these cliffs and thread these gulfs, 
have a legend that Pontius Pilate, after surren- 
dering our Savior to his murderers, and wash- 
ing his hands in unavailing averment that he 
would have no share in the iniquity which he 
so wickedly permitted, here, a heaven-scathed 
vagabond, closed his infamous life. 

The legend says that, after years of misery, 
Pontius Pilate, with the mark of Cain upon his 
brow, terminated his wretched days by plung- 
ing into the icy and ever storm-tossed lake 
which occupies the summit of the mount. But 
the vexed spirit of the betrayer of the Savior 
could find no rest. It continues to haunt the 
place. A spectral form, it is said, often emerges 
from the lake, washing its hands in the black 
waves, and wringing them in agony. The hid- 
eous apparition seems to convulse even nature 
itself. Dense clouds rise over the "infernal 
lake," wrap pinnacle and crag in gloom, and a 
hurricane bursts forth, rending the forests and 
shattering the rocks with unearthly power. 

The simple peasants in the vale below gaze 
upon the phenomenon awe-stricken. Making 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 149 



the sign of the cross upon their breasts, they 
fall upon their knees in prayer, and tremble as 
they contemplate the anger of God in the 
gleaming lightning and the crashing thunder. 

It is easy to see how powerful must be the 
influence of such a superstition upon the hearts 
and the lives of the ignorant peasants, who 
cluster around their firesides, and listen to the 
roar of the midnight storm, in the midst of 
which they hear the fancied shrieks of the vic- 
tim of divine vengeance. There is an import- 
ant truth mingled with the superstition. That 
truth is that sin shall not go unpunished. And 
it is by no means improbable that that single 
truth produces a salutary effect upon their un- 
tutored minds, which infinitely counterbalances 
any injury the superstition may create. 

Look, then, at the influence of unmixed good 
that the revelations of the Bible must exert 
over any soul which understanding^ receives 
them, over the wisest and most highly instruct- 
ed, as well as over the simplest and most un- 
lettered. A young man receives the truth that, 
if he will but live up to the highest standard 
of right he can find, looking to God in prayer 
for guidance, carefully cherishing conscience 
by striving never to do violence to its warn- 
ings, he, by thus " doing God's will," shall un- 



150 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

failingly "know of the doctrine;" that is, he 
shall be so guided to the truth that he shall 
not err from the paths of life. There is thus 
revealed to him, as the result of living in ac- 
cordance with the precepts of Jesus, in loving 
God, loving man, and striving against every 
known sin — there is revealed to him resurrec- 
tion from the grave, immortal life, angelic pu- 
rity and elevation, and residence in heaven as 
God's adopted son and heir forever. 

In the endeavor thus to live he has the as- 
surance of his own nature, an assurance as 
strong as is one's consciousness of his own ex- 
istence, that he is living rationally, wisely. 
There is no power of argument which can over- 
throw this evidence. And the hope of joy to 
come, joy unutterable and endless, is the strong- 
est motive which the mind can conceive to en- 
courage to fidelity. Superstition never imag- 
ined a power comparable to the power of the 
Gospel as a warning against sin and an allure- 
ment to holiness. 

This witness is experimental. It is founded, 
not in argument, which may be shaken or de- 
stroyed by stronger arguments, but in the deep- 
est feelings of human nature. Its deep founda- 
tions are laid in the heart, and can only be de- 
stroyed by the destruction of the heart's noblest 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 151 

affections. I have the testimony of conscious- 
ness, says the Christian, that eternal life has 
commenced within me. 

Though this inward witness is thus spiritual 
and experimental, it is, on that very account, 
justified by the highest deductions of reason. 
That religion must certainly be divine which 
can produce so salutary and happy a change in 
the inward man. There must be a reality in 
that power which can produce an effect so real, 
so permanent, so ennobling, in the sinner's 
heart. It has called into exercise hatred of 
sin, love of holiness, peace of conscience, de- 
light in Grod, solace in affliction, and triumph 
in death. Eeason, in its most rigid judgment, 
declares that no false religion can have this 
witness. 

This is testimony always present and always 
available, in circumstances of the sorest tempta- 
tion and to the most humble Christian. When 
infidel arguments are presented to the mind, 
when difficulties are suggested which can not 
be explained, the believer falls back at once 
upon this inward witness. I have experienced 
in my own soul, he says, the efficacy of this 
religion, and therefore I know its value. 

The Christian may have had neither time 
nor opportunity to become acquainted with the 



152 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

merits of translations or the antiquity of man- 
uscripts. He can not decide between various 
readings, and perhaps can not prove trie au- 
thenticity or authority of a single book in the 
sacred Canon. He may be almost entirely un- 
informed upon all the important subjects of 
Biblical literature and criticism. But what is 
all this to him ? He was sick with the awful 
disease of sin. He tried the Gospel, and it 
healed him. He knows that his own case is 
just like that of others, and that every one 
who will try this same remedy will experience 
a similar cure ; and that thus sin and its con- 
sequent sorrow may be driven from the world 
— yes, from the universe of God. One may as 
well attempt to convince a thirsty man that he 
does not need water, or a hungry man that he 
does not need bread, as attempt to convince the 
experimental Christian that there is not a real- 
ity in the Gospel of Christ. 

This witness every true Christian has. All 
need it alike. It is the foundation of all living 
faith. It is needed as much by a Lardner and 
a Paley as by the most unlearned disciple of 
the Savior. It is found in every pious heart, 
and is influential above all other argument. 

With the growing Christian it is an ever- 
growing evidence. It keeps pace with one's 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 153 

progress in the divine life. The more faithful 
the Christian becomes in every duty, the more 
firm and undoubting is his conviction of the 
truth of Christianity. The young Christian 
may find his faith disturbed by a slight temp- 
tation. But the aged disciple of the Savior, 
who has been strengthened in hours of trial, 
supported in sorrow, and made triumphant in 
many spiritual conflicts, attains such a fullness 
of assurance that there is a reality in religion, 
and that he has experienced that reality, that 
no temptations of the adversary can disturb 
him. He enters the dying chamber, he lies 
down upon the bed of death, with such an un- 
questioning conviction that his soul is saved, 
and that heaven is his home, that the hour of 
his departure is the most joyful and triumph- 
ant of his whole life. 

It was thus that Pascal found that faith 
which gave him the victory over all doubts. 
Wearied with the laborious investigation of 
external evidences, which, though they made 
Christianity, as a divine revelation, in the high- 
est degree probable, still could not amount to 
mathematical certainty, he submitted the truths 
revealed and the duties enjoined to his own 
inward nature, and found there a prompt re- 
sponse, which he could no more doubt than he 



154 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

could doubt his own existence. A book so 
infinitely superior to all others in its adaptation 
to every want of the soul, to the tempted, the 
heart-broken, the dying — to universal humani- 
ty in all its conflicts and its woes — he was sure 
could not be less than divine. He could think 
of no heights of philosophy to which Christian- 
ity did not soar, of no depths of sin or misery 
to which its healing virtues did not descend. 
And thus Pascal, with a mind as comprehen- 
sive and penetrating as perhaps any which has 
ever tabernacled in flesh, bowed in humble and 
joyful believing. God's word proved to his 
spirit what light is to the eye and sound to the 
ear. 

It was a grand thought of John Foster's that 
the miracles which ushered in Christianity were 
but the tolling of the great bell of the universe, 
summoning humanity to listen to the truths 
Christianity was to proclaim. The bell has 
long since ceased to toll, and its vibrations have 
faded from almost every ear. But the truths 
to which that bell summoned the world to lis- 
ten are still falling upon human hearts, and 
awaking within those hearts voices which give 
indubitable testimony to the divinity of the 
lessons which are taught. 

Hence we see the entire refutation of the 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 155 

cavil that unlearned Christians can have no 
foundation for their faith. The majority of 
Christians never have been, and probably never 
can be, deeply versed in the literature of the 
Bible. Thousands of Christians died in the 
triumphs of faith before one word of the New 
Testament was written. They received the 
Gospel only from the lips of its teachers. Other 
thousands have probably gone to heaven, who, 
in the early ages of Christianity, when the Gos- 
pel and Epistles only existed in rare manu- 
scripts, scattered here and there, never read one 
verse of the written Word of God. 

And there are thousands and tens of thou- 
sands now, whose faith, like theirs, is founded 
in the most perfect rationality, who know noth- 
ing of the arguments by which books have 
been rejected or admitted into the sacred Can- 
on ; who have never investigated the question 
whether Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
and who have made no inquiries into the sub- 
ject of interpolations and various readings. 
They know that they can see when the, sun 
shines. They know that, when hungry, food 
satisfies them; and they know also, with the 
same undoubting certainty, that the religion 
of Christ is adapted to the wants of their mor- 
al nature. No man can undermine this firm 



156 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

foundation of their faith. To every cavil of 
the infidel the Christian replies, 

"I have experienced the efficacy and the, 
power of religion in my own heart." 

Hence it is that the best evidence which can 
be presented to others of the truth of Chris- 
tianity is the power which religion exerts over 
the hearts and the lives of its professors. Chris- 
tianity is rarely promoted by argument. As a 
rule of life, it is a religion of, so to speak, self- 
evident truths, which, in the main, are embraced 
through the mind's instinctive perception of 
the excellency of those truths. Our Savior 
seldom attempted to prove his propositions. 
He merely stated them. Eead his sermon on 
the mount. Eead his parables. They are 
merely statements of truth, not theological de- 
bates. It is true that in the epistles there are 
deep arguments, and utterances of profound 
Christian philosophy ; and these arguments si- 
lence the cavils of the skeptic, and lead the 
Christian on to lofty views of the government 
of God, so that, however powerful the grasp of 
his mind and acute his intellect, he can find in 
the ^/Vord of Grod enough to task that mind to 
its utmost, and sublime revealings of thought, 
which will bear it, as on an angel's pinion, in 
its upward flight. But still, all that is essen- 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 157 

tial to Christianity, all that is requisite to se- 
cure the forgiveness and the favor of God, is 
so simple and self-evident that unbelief is de- 
clared to be not only inexcusable, but one of 
the greatest of crimes. "He that believeth 
not shall be damned." 

The need of this Christian faith to meet the 
wants of the soul is recorded in the biography 
of almost every thoughtful man. David Hume, 
the skeptic, as the evening of life was fading 
away, wrote, 

"I seem affrighted and confounded with the 
solitude in which I am placed. When I look 
abroad, on every side I see dispute, contradic- 
tion, distrust. When I turn my eyes inward, 
I find nothing but doubts and ignorance. 
Where am I, or what am I? From what 
cause do I derive my existence? To what 
condition shall I return? I am confounded 
with these questions. I begin to fancy myself 
in the most deplorable condition, environed 
with the deepest darkness on every side." 

Yoltaire writes in a strain still more impress- 
ive and melancholy: "The world abounds with 
wonders and also with victims. In man is 
more wretchedness than in all the other an- 
imals put together. Man loves life, yet he 
knows that he must die. He spends his exist- 



158 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ence in diffusing the miseries he has suffered, 
cutting the throats of his fellow-creatures for 
pay, in cheating and being cheated. The bulk 
of mankind are nothing more than a crowd of 
wretches equally criminal, equally unfortunate. 
I wish I had never been born." 

Byron writes, "I have often wished for in- 
sanity, for any thing to quell memory, the nev- 
er-dying worm that feeds on my heart." 

John Eandolph, of Eoanoke, so renowned in 
the political history of our own country, weary 
with the storms of life, thus wrote to the Hon. 
Henry Tucker : 

"I would not give up my slender portion 
of the price paid for our redemption — yes, my 
brother, our redemption, the ransom of sinners, 
of all who do not hug their chains, and refuse 
to come out from the house of bondage — I say 
I would not exchange my little portion in the 
Son of David for the power and glory of the 
Parthian or Eoman empires, as described by 
Milton in the temptation of our Lord and Sav- 
ior — not for all with which the enemy tempted 
the Savior of man. 

" After years spent in humble and contrite 
entreaty that the tremendous sacrifice on Mount 
Calvary might not have been made in vain for 
me, the chiefest of sinners, it pleased God to 



EVIDENCES OF CHKISTIANITY. 159 

speak peace to my heart — that peace of God 
which passeth all "understanding to them that 
know it not, and even to them that do. 

" And although I have now, as then, to re- 
proach myself with time misspent and faculties 
misemployed — although my condition on more 
than one occasion resembled that of him who, 
having one evil spirit cast out, was taken pos- 
session of by seven other spirits more wicked 
than the first, and by the first also — yet I trust 
that they too, by the power and mercy of God, 
may be, if they are not, vanquished. 

"Had I been a successful political leader, I 
might never have been a Christian; but it 
pleased God that my pride should be mortified 
— that by death and desertion I should lose my 
friends. I had tried all things but the refuge 
to Christ, and to that, with parental stripes, I 
was driven." 

The Hon. Henry Clay, in his dying chamber 
at Washington, disappointed and world-weary, 
sought refuge in Christianity. The Eev. Mr. 
Butler, chaplain of the Senate, in his funeral 
sermon introduces lis to the bedside where the 
illustrious senator breathed his last. 

"From the commencement of his illness," 
says Mr. Butler, " he always expressed to me 
his persuasion that its termination would be 



160 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

fatal. From that period until his death it was 
my privilege to hold frequent religious services 
and conversations with him in his room. He 
avowed to me his full faith in the great lead- 
ing doctrines of the Gospel ; the fall and sin- 
fulness of man; the divinity of Christ; the 
reality and necessity of the atonement; the 
need of being born again of the Spirit, and sal- 
vation through faith in a crucified Eedeemer. 

"His own personal hopes of salvation he 
ever and distinctly based on the promises and 
the grace of Christ. Strikingly perceptible on 
his naturally impetuous and impatient charac- 
ter was the influence of grace, in producing 
submission and a patient waiting for Christ 
and for death. On one occasion he spoke to 
me of the pious example of one very near and 
dear to him, as that which led him deeply to 
feel, and earnestly to seek for himself, the real- 
ity and blessedness of religion. On another 
occasion, when he was supposed to be very 
near his end, I expressed to him the hope that 
his mind and heart were at peace, and that he 
was able to rest with cheerful confidence on 
the promises and in the merits of the Eedeem- 
er. He gfaid, with much feeling, 

U [I endeavor to, and trust that I do, repose 
my salvation upon Christ. I have never doubt- 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 161 

ed the truth of Christianity, and I now wish to 
throw myself upon it as a practical and blessed 
remedy.' 

" Very soon after this," says Mr. Butler, "I 
administered to him the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. Being extremely feeble, and desirous 
of having his mind undiverted, no persons were 
present but his son and servant. It was a 
scene long to be remembered. There, in that 
still chamber, at a week-day noon, the tides of 
life flowing all around us, three disciples of the 
Savior — the minister of God, the dying states- 
man, and his servant, a partaker of the like 
precious faith — commemorated their Savior's 
dying love. 

"He joined in the blessed sacrament with 
great feeling and solemnity, now pressing his 
hands together, and now spreading them forth, 
as the words of the service expressed the feel- 
ings, desires, supplications, confessions, and 
thanksgivings of his heart. His eyes were dim 
with grateful tears ; his heart was full of peace 
and love. 

"When he felt most the weariness of his 
protracted sufferings, it sufficed to suggest to 
him that his heavenly Father doubtless knew 
that, after a life so long, and stirring, and 
tempted, such a discipline of chastening and 
L 



162 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

suffering was needful to make Mm more meet 
for the inheritance of the saints, and at once 
words of meek and patient acquiescence es- 
caped his lips. 

" Exhausted nature at length gave way. 
On the last occasion when I was permitted to 
offer a brief prayer at his bedside, his last words 
to me were that he had hope only in Christ, 
and that the prayer which I had offered for 
his pardoning love and his sanctifying grace 
included every thing which the dying need. 

"On the evening previous to his departure, 
sitting for an hour in silence by his side, I 
could not but realize, when I heard him fre- 
quently uttering aloud the simple prayer, 'Lord, 
have mercy upon me!' and the words, { Mother, 
mother, mother !' how near was the blessed re- 
union of his weary heart with the loved dead. 
Gently he breathed his soul away into the spir- 
it world." 

It is the declaration of God's word that "He 
that believeth on the Son of God hath the wit- 
ness in himself." Have you, reader, this in- 
ward witnessing of the Spirit ? It is a simple, 
practical test of your condition. If you have 
it not, what is to sustain you in the days of tri- 
al which are to come? Have you reflected 
upon the scenes which are before you — the an- 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 163 

guish of death. ; the corruption of the grave ; 
the doom's-day trump; the burning world; the 
day of judgment; the assemblage of angels, 
men, and demons before the great white throne; 
the welcome to heaven, or the doom to hell — 
and then eternity ? Can you float along upon 
time's swift current to these scenes with no 
preparation to meet them ? 



164 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE RESURRECTION. 

Revelation confirmed by the Analogies of Nature. — The 
Chrysalis. — Vegetation. — Views of the Ancients. — The 
Scene of Resurrection. — Beautiful Conception of Parnell. 
— The intermediate State. — Changes through which im- 
mortal Spirits may pass. — Union of Soul and Body in the 
future World. — Scriptural Announcement of Judgment. 
— The final Conflagration. — The new Earth to emerge 
from the Ruins. — Teachings of Geology, Chemistry, and 
Astronomy. — Phenomena of the Stars. 

Almost every doctrine of revelation is con- 
firmed by some remarkable analogy in the sys- 
tem of nature. The insect, after lying entomb- 
ed for weeks, perhaps for months, in its chrysa- 
lis mausoleum, hears some resurrection voice 
which calls it from its burial. It bursts its 
cerements, and, expanding its beauteous wings, 
painted with every rainbow hue, launches into 
the air, rejoicing in the sunbeams, and sipping 
nectar from every flower. This emerging of 
the butterfly from the temporary grave of the 
worm, as "It flies and swims a flower in liquid 
air," seems to be the illustration, the scenic ex- 



THE RESURRECTION. 165 

hibition which nature presents of the doctrine 
of the final resurrection. 

Paul attempts to give some faint conception 
of that spiritual body we are to receive at the 
resurrection by comparing it with the graceful, 
fruitful stalk which rises from the burial of the 
kernel of grain. The dry and shriveled grain 
is the germ from whence the beautiful blade 
emerges. Thus does Paul present the whole 
vegetable world, the uprising of the plant or 
tree from the buried seed, as illustrative of the 
resurrection of the body from the grave. The 
majestic oak, monarch of the fields, whose 
branches are the harp-strings on which the 
tempest plays its anthems, is but the resurrec- 
tion of the buried acorn. The apple-tree, in 
its June -morning bloom, most gorgeous of 
earth's bouquets, whose fragrance fills the air, 
and in the warm bosom of whose blossoms ten 
thousand bees murmur their joy, is but the 
resurrection of a dull, dead seed. 

Many of the ancients, unenlightened by rev- 
elation, had some dim conception of the im- 
mortality of the soul. But the idea of the res- 
urrection of the body seems by them never to 
have been entertained. To the Bible alone 
we are indebted for the knowledge of this truth. 
It is not only true that the soul shall live for- 



166 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ever, but the archangel's trumpet shall pierce 
the tomb, and startle the. slumbering tenant 
there. The body, which for ages has been 
mingling with the dust, shall spring into life 
at that summons, having undergone some mys- 
terious transformation, preparing it for its flight 
through empty space, and inspired with vital 
energies which eternal ages can not wear away. 

We are taught in the Scriptures that in the 
morning of the resurrection all the dead shall 
come forth from their graves. 

" The hour is coming," says our Savior, "in 
which all that are in their graves shall hear his 
voice, and shall come forth; they that have 
done good unto the resurrection of life, and 
they that have done evil unto the resurrection 
of damnation."* 

This is not merely the announcement of a 
future existence, but of the resurrection of the 
body from the corruption of the grave. 

"In a moment," says Paul, "in the twink- 
ling of an eye, at the last trump ; for the trum- 
pet shall sound and the dead shall be raised, 
and we" — that is, Christians who may be living 
at that time — " shall be changed. For this cor- 
ruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality."f 

* John, v., 28, 29. | 1 Cor., xv., 52, 53. 



THE RESURRECTION. 167 

In one hour, at one call, the sea shall give 
up the dead that are in it. The rocky mauso- 
leums of Egypt, the crowded tombs and thick- 
ly-sown grave-yards of the city, the battle-fields 
of the Old World, and the solitudes of the New, 
when the light of that morning gleams in the 
horizon, and the thunders of the archangel's 
trump reverberate around the world, shall in- 
stantaneously deliver up their long-held de- 
posits. 

Oh, how effectually will that peal arrest all 
the wheels of nature! All the nations, and 
tribes, and kindred of the earth will be para- 
lyzed by the summons. Every eye will be 
riveted, every ear will be on the alert, every 
heart will throb. Business will stop, pleasure 
Will stop, time will stop. A moment before, 
the current of earthly affairs rolled on as im- 
petuously as ever. That one sound ushers in 
eternity. Time and all time's interests are in 
an instant blotted forever from every mind. 

There will be many living at that time. The 
world will probably then be more populous 
than at any previous period of its history, and 
unnumbered millions will be sleeping beneath 
its bosom. The living will see the archangel 
as in rapid flight he encircles the world. They 
will hear the trumpet as it shakes creation, and, 



168 PKACTICAL CHKISTIANITY. 

echoing from star to star, reverberates through 
infinity. They will witness the sublime spec- 
tacle of the bursting graves, and the sheeted 
corpses emerging to the resurrection. Then, 
by some powerful attraction, the living will be 
drawn from earth. 

" Smooth sliding, without step," 

they pass rapidly through the air, beyond the 
clouds, and moon, and sun, and twinkling stars, 
to the place appointed them before the judg- 
ment throne. 

" Then we," says Paul, " which are alive and 
remain, shall be caught up together with them 
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air ; and 
so shall we ever be with the Lord."* 

But as the buried bodies of the saints shall 
rise, having undergone some wonderful trans- 
formation, preparing them for their flight 
through infinity and the endurance of eternity, 
with never-failing youth and vigor, so will the 
bodies of living Christians be suddenly changed, 
without the process of death, to embellish the 
court of Grod, and to share and to magnify its 
never-ending bliss. In the poem of the Her- 
mit, Parnell endeavors to describe the imagined 
change of a mortal to an angel : 
* 1 Thess., iv.. 17, 



THE RESUBRECTION. 169 

"His youthful face grew more serenely sweet. 
His robe turn'd white, and flow'd about his feet. 
Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair. 
Celestial odors breathe through purpled air, 
And wings, whose colors glitter in the day, 
Wide at his back their gradual plumes display ; 
But silence here the beauteous angel broke, 
The voice of music ravish'd as he spoke. " 

This poetical conception, beautiful as it is, 
but feebly delineates the reality of that joyful 
change to take place in the bodies both of the 
dead and of the living when this corruptible 
shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall 
put on immortality. " Bye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart 
of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love him."* 

The question is often asked, " What is the 
condition of the soul during the period which 
elapses between death and the resurrection of 
the body to the final judgment?' 7 

1. It is clearly taught in Scripture that the 
soul, immediately upon death, goes to its ap- 
pointed place of reward or punishment in the 
spirit world. There is perhaps no truth more 
distinctly revealed than this. In the parable 
of the rich man and Lazarus, both are repre- 
sented as going, without any interval of delay, 

* 1 Cor., iL, 9. 



170 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

to their destined abode in the land of spirits. 
The rich man finds himself immediately in tor- 
ment, and Lazarus is introduced immediately 
to Abraham's bosom. The rich man's friends 
still live, and he begs that some one may be 
sent back to this world to warn them of their 
doom. 

On the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and 
Elias appeared visibly to the disciples, proving 
beyond controversy that their spirits were not 
slumbering in unconsciousness, but that they 
were moving actively amid the choirs of heav- 
en, while their bodies were still mouldering in 
the grave. The declaration of our Savior to 
the penitent thief upon the cross, " To-day shalt 
thou be with me in Paradise,"* is decisive tes- 
timony upon this point. The vision of the 
martyr Stephen, with heaven unfolded to his 
eye, and the surrendry of his soul to the Savior, 
who was waiting to receive his spirit, impress- 
ively teaches that the spirit of the Christian 
passes immediately from the dying scene to the 
celestial mansions. The desire of the apostle 
"to depart and to be with Christ"f surely 
teaches that death would not consign him to 
long centuries of oblivion, but would immedi- 
ately introduce him to his heavenly home. He 

* Luke, xxiii., 43. f 1 Phil., i., 23. 



THE RESURRECTION. 171 

prefers to die rattier than to live simply be- 
cause death, would translate him to intimate 
companionship with his Savior. 

The Apostle Jude records that 

" The angels which kept not their first estate, 
but left their own habitation, he hath reserved 
in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the 
judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom 
and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in 
like manner, giving themselves over to forni- 
cation, and going after strange flesh, are set 
forth for an example, suffering the vengeance 
of eternal fire."* 

This testimony is certainly conclusive to 
prove that the souls of the wicked go imme- 
diately to the prisons of despair. Enoch and 
Elijah ar.e revealed to us in the Old Testament 
as translated to heaven ; and it would appear 
that in their case, as in that of our Savior, their 
bodies were transformed into the new or spir- 
itual body which others are to receive at the 
final resurrection. 

2. The nature of the soul itself would seem 
to indicate that it must of necessity, when it 
leaves the body, continue in active existence. 
It is the voice of philosophy, as well as of poet- 
ry, that 

* <Jude, 6, 7. 



172 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

"There is no death; what seems such is transition: 
This life of mortal breath 
Is but the suburb of that life elysian, 
Whose portals we call death." 

Death merely separates the soul from the 
body. The soul is a real existence — more a 
real existence than the body. It is vital in ev- 
ery part, imperishable, invulnerable ; made in 
Grod's image, and it can not die. Where, then, 
is this soul, if it do not go immediately from 
the bed of death to its final home? Look at 
this withered mummy, in the Museum, which 
has been dug from one of the tombs of Thebes 
after a slumber of three thousand years. Is it 
conceivable that the soul is existing some- 
where, embalmed in unconsciousness, amid 
these resinous folds ? 

Contemplate the empty mausoleums of the 
Pharaohs, which have been swept by the winds 
of twenty centuries, and where not even a 
handful of dust can be found in memorial of 
the multitudes who have there mouldered 
away. Where are the souls which once in- 
habited these bodies which have so entirely 
disappeared? Is it conceivable that these 
souls are, for the present, virtually as dead as 
are the bodies which for ages have been swept 
in impalpable dust over the desert; or that 



THE RESURRECTION. 173 

they are imprisoned in these mausoleums of 
rock; or that they are dissolved, as it were, 
into spiritual dust, and are wafted over hill 
and vale at the sport of the winds ; or has God 
some repository for dead souls, where they are 
preserved lifeless, awaiting the summons of the 
body to judgment? There is no theory, sus- 
tained by a shadow of reason, which can take 
the place of the clear revelations of Scripture 
upon this point. When the body, from sick- 
ness, age, or accident, falls in death, instantly 
the soul wings its glad flight, buoyant with 
bliss, to heaven, or instantly it sinks to the 
prisons of despair. 

Probably in the lapse of ages there may be 
innumerable changes through which man may 
pass as he soars upward and onward in the ca- 
reer of immortality. How vast the change 
from the new-born babe, helpless and almost 
senseless, with organs all untried, to the strong 
man, whose pulse leaps through his veins, and 
whose ambition and energy move perhaps the 
world. 

The first great change which man encoun- 
ters in passing from this life is the separation 
of the soul from the body ; and thus man ex- 
ists during the intermediate state — during the 
period between death and the final resurrec- 



174 PKACTICAL CHKISTIAKITY. 

tion. The Christian is revealed to "us in Grod's 
"Word as soaring from the bed of death a glo- 
rious being without material organization — an 
angel among angels. For a season the body 
is laid aside, and the soul exists as a disembod- 
ied spirit. There may be countless millions 
of such in God's wide realms. There may be 
myriads of worlds, created in unimagined splen- 
dor, peculiarly adapted for such an existence. 

The soul may thus soar through all the 
realms of infinity, exploring creation's grand- 
eur, grasping divine philosophy, exulting in ce- 
lestial companionship, visiting material worlds, 
assuming celestial forms; an angel glittering 
amid the hierarchy of heaven, perfect in spirit- 
ual organization, and sharing all the glory and 
bliss of cherubim and seraphim. 

It is painful to turn to the contemplation of 
the lost. Judas goes to his own place, as Paul 
to his. The soul, divested of the body, can be 
gnawed by the undying pangs of remorse. 
The soul, freed from clay, may be consumed 
by the quenchless flames of despair. 

The body and soul, intimate as is their pres- 
ent union, are still so distinct, even here, that 
the soul can endure pangs of inconceivable se- 
verity while the body is free from pain ; and, 
again, while the body is writhing in the hot- 



THE RESURRECTION. 175 

test flames of martyrdom, the soul may be in 
such an ecstasy of rapture that those very 
flames shall seem but as a triumphal chariot 
bearing the conqueror to his coronation in the 
skies. 

Such, the Bible informs us, is the condition 
of man during the intermediate state. The body 
returns to the dust. The spirit immediately 
ascends to heaven or sinks to hell. Eedeemed 
Lazarus wings his flight to Abraham's bosom. 
The impenitent rich man departs to his place 
in torment. 

At length the appointed hour arrives for the 
second coming of our Savior. " Behold, he 
cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see 
him."* "For the Lord himself shall descend 
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of 
the archangel, and with the trump of God; 
and the dead in Christ shall rise first."f Then 
there is to be the closing up of the drama of 
time, the final and judicial settlement of the 
great tragedy and crime of human life. The 
earth, as now constituted, will come to an end. 
The universe will be summoned to witness the 
explanation of life's mystery, and the adjudica- 
tion of its terrific wrongs. 

The scenes of this most sublime event are 

* Rev., i., 7. f 1 Thess., iv., 16. 



176 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

announced with much, minuteness of detail. 
The archangel shall appear, proclaiming with 
trumpet peal that time shall be no longer. The 
overarching skies, which now seem like a blue 
canopy spread above us, shall apparently be 
rolled together like a scroll, unfolding to ev- 
ery eye the great white throne, the book of 
life, and the congregated myriads assembled to 
witness the scene of judgment. The graves 
shall burst open, and the bodies of the dead 
shall rise. The sea shall give up the dead that 
are in it, and all the dead, both small and great, 
shall stand before God. Every soul, the re- 
deemed and the unredeemed, is to return and 
re-enter its former body as it emerges from the 
grave. This body, which was the companion 
of the soul's sin or holiness, is also to be its 
companion in retribution or reward. 

And now comes the judgment. These souls 
and bodies, thus united for the first time since 
death, now stand before God's bar to hear that 
verdict from which there can be no appeal. 
Soul and body were united in yielding to sin, 
or in struggling against temptation, and it is 
fitting that they should stand together in the 
same union at God's bar. All are " caught up 
together into the air." Guilty souls are sum- 
moned from the world of woe, and, reunited 



THE RESURRECTION. 177 

with their bodies, are arraigned, with the devil 
and his angels, before this tribunal. There the 
whole mystery of their ungodly lives is to be 
so unfolded to the universe that, when their 
doom is proclaimed, the whole universe shall 
say, It is just. 

The disciples of the Savior are collected 
upon the right hand of the throne, their souls 
united with their resurrection bodies. The 
smile of the Judge, and the sentence, " Wel- 
come, ye blessed of my Father," cause all the 
angels of heaven to cluster around them with 
congratulations. The spirit of heaven already 
reigns in their hearts, and all the ineffable glo- 
ries of heaven are spread around them. 

In the mean time the flames of the last con- 
flagration have consumed, or rather disinte- 
grated, the world, and from its funeral pyre 
there probably is to be the resurrection of an- 
other world, far more glorious than was this 
when it came fresh from its Maker's hands, and 
all the morning stars welcomed its birth. It 
is, I think, now generally supposed that the 
solid globe, cursed by the fall, will be glorified 
through redemption. Eedeemed man will be 
elevated to a condition far above that which 
Adam occupied ; and this world, as his abode, 
from which he can explore infinity, may be re- 
M 



178 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

newed into a creation of grandeur and beauty 
which. Eden never knew. It is thought that 
this truth is taught by the following declara- 
tion of Peter: 

" Seeing, then, that all these things shall be 
dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye 
to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 
looking for and hasting unto the coming of the 
day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, 
shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, accord- 
ing to his promise, look for a new heavens and 
a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."* 

It is by many, and, indeed, I think, now by 
most students of the Bible, inferred from this 
passage that this solid globe, having been puri- 
fied in the flames of the last conflagration, will 
rise from its ashes expanded, etherealized, beau- 
tified with all the majesty and loveliness with 
which God's hand can embellish it. Milton, in 
describing the transgression of Eve, sublimely 
says : 

" So saying, her rash hand, in evil hour, 
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd — she ate : 
Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seats, 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe 
That all was lost." 

* 2 Peter, iii., 11-13. 



THE KESUKKECTION. 179 

Dr. Chalmers, in a very eloquent sermon 
upon this subject, urges, with force of argu- 
ment which can not well be controverted, that 
the flames of the last conflagration will but 
separate the elements of this globe, that they 
may be recomposed, in forms of unimagined 
grandeur and beauty, as the regenerated home 
for regenerated man ; not, as now, his prison, 
but his home; from whence he can soar on an- 
gel wings through all the realms of space, vis- 
iting the remotest star which glimmers in the 
new heavens above him, and sharing the fes- 
tivities of their rejoicing inhabitants. 

This world was the scene of man's fall. It 
has been the theatre of his conflicts and his re- 
demption. It is, perhaps, to be the throne of 
our Savior's victory over sin, and death, and 
hell, where the sacramental host of God's elect 
shall crown him Lord of all. Thus purified 
from the curse of the fall, it is again to take its 
place among God's mansions, a blissful home, 
where angels may love to dwell, and where 
God himself may linger with delight. Here, 
among our renovated hills and vales, Eden's 
flowers shall again bloom, and Eden's fragrant 
zephyrs shall be wafted ; and here lakes and 
bowers such as Eden never knew shall invite 
to joy. Here the bells, ringing earth's jubilee, 



180 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

shall blend with the hallelujahs of triumph of 
renovated myriads. Here, where Christ en- 
dured the cross, he shall wear the crown, his 
New Jerusalem perhaps embracing Calvary as 
its central point of glory and of triumph. 
Christ shall be our sovereign ; all the redeem- 
ed his willing subjects ; and no rebel shall be 
admitted here to mar the universal joy — to in- 
fuse discord into the universal song. 

Then the great victory of the Cross will be 
achieved, and the work of redemption will be 
finished. Earth, redeemed, will present a par- 
adise more sublime and beautiful than that 
which Adam trod. The bodies of men, raised 
from the grave, will present perfection of or- 
ganization and lineaments of beauty which will 
make them embellishments to the court of the 
King of kings and the Lord of lords. The soul 
of man, purified by atoning blood and regen- 
erated by the Spirit's power, angelic in all its 
capacities, shall take possession of its spiritual 
body, and enter upon its reign of songs and 
everlasting joy. Such are the glimpses which 
revelation gives us of the "new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." It will be a world of 
hills and vales, of lakes and rivers, of fruits and 
flowers, of songs and loving companionship. 
It will be one of the many mansions of our Fa- 



THE RESURRECTION. 181 

ther's house. But infinity is God's abode, and 
probably in all its mansions his "sons and 
heirs" will be equally welcome. 

The resurrection of the body proves that the 
redeemed, in the future world, will have a ma- 
terial as well as a spiritual nature. They must, 
therefore, have a residence suitable to this com- 
plexity of being, a residence adapted for a body 
as well as for the spirit which shall dwell in 
that body. They must have a home fitted for 
corporeal frames. To use the language of Dr. 
Chalmers, 

"Not an abode of dimness and mystery, so 
remote from human experience as to be beyond 
all comprehension — a lofty aerial region, where 
the inmates float in ether, or are mysteriously 
suspended upon nothing, but a home from 
which he may travel, by means unknown to 
us, to other localities in the universe." 

We are not to suppose that this world is to 
be the heaven, the exclusive residence of the 
redeemed, but that it is to be reconstructed, en- 
larged, and embellished, as one of the brilliant 
mansions of our Father's house, which house is 
the infinity which God inhabits. In all por- 
tions of this infinity, upon all its glittering 
worlds, the Christian may be as much at home 
as is the son and heir of a king — though he 



182 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

have his appropriate suite of apartments — at 
home in all the saloons of the palace, in its 
gardens, its parks, and upon its mirrored waters. 

The revelations of science strongly confirm 
the teachings of God's word. Geology asserts, 
with authoritative voice, that the interior of 
our globe, after we break through a thin crust 
of but forty miles in thickness, consists of a 
vast mass, eight thousand miles in diameter, of 
liquid fire. The surges of this molten sea often 
upheave continents in earthquakes. Vesuvius, 
Etna, Hecla, and many other volcanic peaks, 
are but the chimneys through which these 
flames at times fiercely roar, vomiting forth 
rivers of lava and clouds of ashes, which dark- 
en the sun and overwhelm cities in ruin. 

Chemistry informs us that the ocean itself is 
composed of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, 
the one the wick, the other the oil for a con- 
flagration which shall burn rocks and iron as 
if they were tinder. It needs but a touch from 
those electric forces which God has stored in 
his arsenals to cause ocean, and lake, and river 
to flame to the skies ; and then the breaking 
in of this thin crust of earth into the molten 
ocean of incandescent fire which surges beneath 
us would, in a moment, complete the last con- 
flagration. 



THE RESURRECTION. 183 

Astronomy teaches us that such terrific ca- 
tastrophes have already taken place in other 
worlds. Fragments of exploded planets flame 
through our atmosphere. Stars fade away and 
disappear. In the year 1572 a star suddenly 
blazed up in such brilliance, as to attract all 
eyes. It surpassed in splendor the most bril- 
liant planets, and the gleam of that beacon-fire, 
shooting athwart distances which no science 
can measure, might be seen even at noonday. 
Gradually the conflagration seemed to abate ; 
the lustrous point grew dim, and .finally faded 
away, the conflagrated world having assumed 
some form which rendered it no longer visible 
to mortal eyes. 

In the year 1604 another star apparently 
passed through the same changes. Indeed, we 
know not how many have been the changes 
through which this world has passed during 
the long periods of eternity. It is quite evi- 
dent that it has been used for other purposes 
than those which it now subserves ere God 
called it from chaos, formless and void, and 
prepared it for the abode of man. We are 
treading upon the cemeteries of the past. We 
are dwelling in the mausoleums of those who 
have gone before us. This globe Satan has 
cursed. This globe Christ will redeem. 



184: PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

4 'But the day of the Lord will come as a thief 
in the night, in the which the heavens shall 
pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and 
the works that are therein, shall be burned up. 
Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dis- 
solved, what manner of persons ought ye to be 
in all holy conversation and godliness, looking- 
for and hastening unto the coming of the day 
of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall 
be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to 
his promise, look for new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Where- 
fore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such 
things, be diligent that ye may be found of 
him in peace, without spot and blameless."* 
* 2 Peter, iii., 10-13. 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 185 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CELESTIAL BODY. 

The Soul to occupy a Body in the future World. — Shadowy 
Conceptions. — Imperfection not essential to Materialism. 
— The celestial Body not a new Creation, but a Resurrec- 
tion. — Change in the Bodies of the Living. — Philosoph- 
ical Objections. — Greatness of the Change at the Resur- 
rection. — Beauty of the human Frame. — Celestial Jour- 
neying. — Magnitude of the Universe. — Employments in 
Heaven. — Cheering Views. 

Every one must feel interested to learn all 
that can be learned respecting the celestial 
body which the soul is to inhabit beyond the 
grave. The Bible presents us with some hints 
upon this subject which are worthy of being 
carefully treasured up. In investigating this 
theme, let us observe that, 

1. It is evident that the soul, in the future 
world as in this, will inhabit a body of some 
kind or other. Spiritualism and materialism 
will there, as here, be combined. "For we 
know," says Paul, "that if our earthly house 
of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a 
building of God, a house not made with hands, 



186 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

eternal in the heavens."* The apostle here ev- 
idently refers to the body which the soul occu- 
pies in this world, and which it is to exchange 
for another body in the world to come. Many 
persons seem to shrink from the frank accept- 
ance of the vivid revelations of God's Word 
upon this point. 

Notwithstanding the distinct representations 
of the Scriptures of the resurrection of the body, 
and the reunion of soul and body in heaven, 
there are multitudes of Christians who have 
only a conception of an exceedingly vague and 
shadowy existence in the future world, with- 
out any dignity or beauty to give it attraction 
to the human mind. They dream of heaven 
as the abode of naked spirit, without form or 
outline, placeless — a sort of Brahminic absorp- 
tion, in the contemplation of Deity, infinitely 
diffused. They even shrink from the concep- 
tion of the future home of the blessed as realms 
of hills and vales, lakes and rivers, rural man- 
sions and metropolitan cities, fruits and flow- 
ers, green pastures and still waters, bird songs 
and angel songs, robes, and harps, and crowns, 
and the plumage of seraphic wings, as in loved 
companionship they soar through the realms 
of space ; they shrink from these conceptions, 
* 2 Cor., v., l. 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 187 

so vividly delineated by the pencil of inspira- 
tion, fearing that they are too material and 
earthly. 

The cheerless views of heaven which many 
have cherished have not been gathered from 
the glowing imagery, from the vivid and ex- 
hilarating revelations of Grod's Word. There 
is no truth more conspicuous there than that 
there is a celestial body as well as a terrestrial 
body ; and that this body, sown in corruption, 
and dishonor, and weakness, shall be raised a 
body of incorruption, and glory, and power, 
with which the soul shall be united forever. 
The immortal spirit, which now occupies space, 
dwelling in these fleshly tabernacles, shall then 
occupy space, and possess distinct individual- 
ity, and stand out in prominent and well-de- 
fined outline as one perfect, glorious organiza- 
tion, moving here and there, as personally iden- 
tical, as capable of recognition, as any one 
whose material form now arrests the eye and 
wins the heart. 

It is a great delusion to imagine that imper- 
fection and impurity are necessarily connected 
with materialism. The sunbeams, electric fluid, 
impalpable gases, are material, and, for aught 
we know, they may be as pure and eternal as 
spirit itself. The electric fire which gleams 



188 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

from the midnight cloud may be woven into 
angel robes, which shall be as enduring as the 
souls whose celestial forms they attire. 

The Apostle Paul was especially earnest in 
teaching this doctrine of the resurrection of the 
body, as though conscious that human philoso- 
phy, in its ignorance, would attempt its sub- 
version. 

"If there be no resurrection of the dead," 
says Paul, "then is Christ not risen; and if 
Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, 
and your faith is also vain. And if Christ be 
not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in 
your sins. But now is Christ risen from the 
dead, and become the first-fruits of them that 
slept."* 

2. It is also important in this connection to 
observe that the celestial body is not a new 
creation, but a resurrection. The body in which 
our Savior presented himself to his disciples 
after his crucifixion was the body which had 
been conveyed lifeless to the tomb, and which 
he had always assured them should rise from 
that tomb without seeing corruption. The dis- 
ciples felt of this body. It could assume va- 
rious forms, and pass at will from place to 
place. Our Savior ate with his disciples, con- 

* 1 Cor., xv., 13, 14, 17, 20. 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 189 

versed with, them as man with man, and then, 
in clouds of glory, with this body, soared on 
high. 

The same body that is buried is to be raised, 
but not to be raised in the same condition in 
which it was buried. The kernel of wheat, the 
same kernel that is sown, rises from its burial; 
but how different is the beautiful stalk, waving 
in golden ripeness in the autumnal breeze, 
from the dry and withered grain placed be- 
neath the soil! The wind blows the seed of 
an elm into the meadow. It germinates and 
rises from its burial. Half a century passes 
away, and there stands the lordly tree, proud 
monarch of the fields. Noble oxen browse be- 
neath its shades, and birds of varied song and 
plumage rear their young and sing their an- 
thems within its wide - spreading branches. 
How majestic the towering elm! and yet it is 
but the resurrection of a diminutive seed. 

The same body that is buried is to be raised. 
It is buried in corruption ; it is to be raised in 
incorruption. It is buried in dishonor ; it is to 
be raised in glory. It is buried in weakness ; 
it is to be raised in power. " It is sown a nat- 
ural body ; it is raised a spiritual body. There 
is a natural body, and there is a spiritual 
body." 



190 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

When the trump of the archangel shall 
sound, proclaiming that time shall be no lon- 
ger, " All that are in their graves," says Christ, 
" shall come forth: they that have done good 
unto the resurrection of life, and they that 
have done evil unto the resurrection of damna- 
tion."* " The sea shall give up the dead that 
are in it; and all the dead, small and great, 
shall stand before God." "He that raised up 
Christ from the dead," says Paul, "shall also 
quicken (£b)OTroir)(ju, bring to life) your mortal 
bodies."f Again, he writes to the Philippians, 
"For our conversation is in heaven, from 
whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord 
Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, 
that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious 
body."$ 

This same transformation which shall take 
place in the bodies of the dead, as they rise 
from the grave at the summons of the arch- 
angel, shall also take place in the bodies of 
those who may be living at that time. The 
living will not leave their bodies behind them. 
These fleshly tabernacles will not be annihi- 
lated ; but, transformed into celestial grandeur 
and beauty, they shall pierce infinity on tire- 

* John, v., 29. f Rom., viii., 11. 

% Phil., iii.,20,21. 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 191 

less wings, which shall soar to blend with the 
plumage of cherubim and seraphim who sur- 
round the throne of God. Thus will all be 
changed. In the case of the living as of the 
dead, there will be a renovation, a reconstruc- 
tion of the same body which lies mouldering 
in the grave, or which is animated with life in 
the morning of the resurrection 

It is very unwise to adduce philosophical 
objections against the clear revelations of God's 
Word. All human philosophy is at present 
so imperfect that it deserves but little respect 
when it comes in direct antagonism with the 
Bible. There may be apparent antagonisms, 
which may disappear in the light of higher 
principles of Biblical interpretation, or in the 
progressive elucidations of science ; but if the 
Bible do not teach the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion of the body, it is difficult to conceive what 
it can teach. That truth is affirmed in the 
most emphatic declarations, and is illustrated 
with the most impressive imagery. 

No chemical analysis has as yet been able to 
reach the ultimate elementary principles of 
which these bodies consist, and, consequently, 
the philosophy which denies the possibility of 
the resurrection is but the conceit of ignorance. 
Let the corporeal elements which compose 



192 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

these bodies be dispersed as widely as they 
may, and let them enter into any other com- 
binations which God may choose, where is the 
philosopher so audacious as to assert that these 
elements, by their dispersion, lose their vitality, 
and can not, by the power of Grod, be recollect- 
ed and recombined? How much more intel- 
lectual and philosophic is the faith which Hen- 
ry Kirke White has expressed so beautifully 
in verse ! 

" These ashes too, this little dust, 
Our Father's care shall keep 
Till the last angel rise and break 
The long and dreary sleep." 

Let the imagination exhaust itself in the con- 
templation of the dispersion of these corporeal 
atoms, still, nothing can be more easy than for 
divine wisdom and power to protect every par- 
ticle of these elements, and to reunite them in 
a resurrection body, incorruptible, powerful, 
and glorious. He who formed these bodies, 
and controls the movements of every atom of 
matter, can easily preserve those particles in 
their various dispersions and combinations; 
and he who formed these bodies from the dust 
of the earth, with bone, and sinew, and agile 
limb, and glowing blood, and throbbing heart, 
and sparkling eye, can surely, from these bod- 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 193 

ies, construct others in any degree of perfection 
and grandeur, refined from every ingredient of 
grossness and decay. 

He who has seen the cradle of the butterfly 
in the tomb of the caterpillar ; who has thus 
beheld, emerging from the grave of the worm, 
the most beautiful of insects, graceful, buoyant, 
combining in its delicate yet gorgeous loveli- 
ness the most exquisite tints of the lily and the 
rose — he who has seen and admired this fair 
creation, and remembers that it is but the res- 
urrection of one of the most loathsome of in- 
sects, will be slow to deny that from these bod- 
ies there may emerge from the tomb the form 
of an archangel, winged for an eternal flight, 
and adorned with grace, and beauty, and grand- 
eur, which shall add attractions even to that 
world where cherubim fly and seraphim sing. 

u Yet wert thou once a worm — a thing that crept 
On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept ; 
And such is man : soon from his cell of clay- 
To burst, a seraph, in the blaze of day." 

There is surely no philosophy which can 
controvert the declaration of Locke, that "it 
is not more incomprehensible that a glorious, 
immortal body should arise from a mass of cor- 
ruption than that all this variety of splendid 
forms should arise from nothing. 77 
N 



194 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

3. These thoughts lead necessarily to the ob- 
servation that the change the body is to under- 
go in its resurrection from the grave will be 
very great. Though the resurrection body will 
be material in its elements, it will not be a body 
of flesh and blood. And, though we may not 
be prepared to accept the suggestion of the 
distinguished physical philosopher, Professor 
Hitchcock, that the future body may be com- 
posed of " the luminiferous ether, that attenu- 
ated medium by which light, and heat, and 
electricity are transmitted from one part of the 
universe to the other by undulations of incon- 
ceivable velocity," the suggestion shows that, 
even in the light of our blind philosophy, we 
can conceive of material bodies freed from all 
possible imperfection, which no harm can reach, 
and which no lapse of ages can impair. 

It is only in general terms that the Bible 
speaks to us of the resurrection body. It de- 
clares that it will present an aspect inconceiva- 
bly glorious, and that it will be endowed with 
powers which we can now but feebly compre- 
hend. Gravitation is the chain which confines 
us prisoners of sin to a ruined world. The 
resurrection body will not feel this chain. Un- 
fettered, imponderable, it will soar away obe- 
dient to every wish. The body of Elijah was 
thus transformed when, 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 195 

"To mount on high, 
He took, in fiery pomp, the chariot of the sky." 

The body with which our Savior rose from 
the grave had shaken off all the clogs and chains 
of materialism. Thought is not more free than 
were his movements. Imagination has not a 
flight less frictionless than that with which our 
Savior moved, as volition impelled, passage 
through space requiring no time, bars of iron 
and walls of stone presenting no obstacle, till 
finally, with invisible wings, he glided upward 
through the skies to that world of glory, where 
his disciples are to be with him also. 

There is no form of beauty which can be 
conceived superior to that of the human frame. 
The Venus de Medici enchants the world. 
All men do homage to the Apollo Belvidere. 
These renowned statues have for ages drawn 
millions to bow before them in admiration of 
the most exquisite feminine loveliness and the 
most godlike manly dignity. The angels who 
have occasionally appeared in our skies, or 
have entered the abodes of men, have always 
appeared in the perfection of human forms. 
Adam and Eve, in their sinless state, were man- 
ifestly so created. This renders it at least not 
improbable that the present organism of the 
human frame, remodeled to lineaments of the 



196 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

most exquisite grace and beauty, may be re- 
vived beyond the grave. A very slight alter- 
ation in complexion and features will change a 
countenance which is repulsive into surpassing 
loveliness. 

Thus the resurrection body, though retain- 
ing essentially the present order of structure, 
may as far surpass the Medicean Venus and 
the Pythian Apollo, in symmetric grace and 
in beaming loveliness, as those world-renowned 
statues excel the most dwarfed and revolting 
forms to be found in the hovels of the Hotten- 
tot or the Esquimaux. It is also worthy of re- 
mark that there may be a very strong resem- 
blance between two persons, one of whom may 
be very beautiful, and the other may possess 
features coarse and repulsive. Thus it is not 
impossible that in the future world we shall 
see, beaming from the countenances of angels 
radiant with celestial beauty, the lineaments of 
loved ones on earth, who have left impressions 
upon the heart never to be effaced. The an- 
gel mother shall there smile again upon her 
child with the same smile, but now celestial- 
ized, with which she enkindled the love of her 
babe when in its cradle. Hence Dr. D wight 
says, 

" It is, I think, sufficiently evident that man^ 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 197 

kind will know each other in the future world, 
and that their bodies will be so far the same as 
to become the means of this knowledge." 

4. It is also worthy of observation that the 
spiritual body must be capable of rapid mo- 
tion, exceeding the sunbeam's speed, and leav- 
ing the lightning a loiterer in the race. There 
is such a place as heaven — such a distinct local- 
ity. This must be admitted, unless we spirit- 
ualize away the plain teachings of the Bible 
into the most empty mysticism. Heaven is 
represented to us as the capital of God's em- 
pire, resplendent with divine brilliance, from 
whence emanates God's law, and from whence 
his winged messengers communicate to the re- 
motest provinces his will. 

We know not where, within the bounds of 
limitless space, God has reared that metropolis, 
honored by his visible presence, which infinite- 
ly outvies all his other works. It is, however, 
a natural thought that heaven should be the 
central point of the created universe. From 
this central throne the vision of Deity may 
sweep through circling abysses of space, which 
no human arithmetic can compute, and no 
mortal imagination can scan. 

Planets, suns, systems, comets, countless clus- 
ters of countless suns, in profusion which the 



198 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Almighty mind alone can comprehend, may 
sweep in circling homage around his throne. 
How magnificent the conception that all the 
myriads of worlds which the telescope has re- 
vealed are but the remote frontier embellish- 
ments of the city of our God ; that in that cen- 
tral metropolis he has reared those palaces 
which archangels throng ; that there he has as- 
sembled the thrones, dominions, principalities, 
and powers of his high court ; that there di- 
vinely-selected choirs of cherubim and sera- 
phim peal forth their choral anthems ! 

From this central court the whole universe 
of created worlds may be explored. They are 
as islets floating in the ocean of God's glory. 
The spaces intervening, almost incomprehensi- 
ble to finite minds, do but give scope to angelic 
activity, and may ever sparkle with the bril- 
liance of celestial plumage, as these heavenly 
embassadors wing their flight from sphere to 
sphere with velocity which the lightning can 
not rival. 

Lord Eosse's great telescope reveals celestial 
objects at such inconceivable distances that 
light, traveling at the rate of two hundred 
thousand miles in a second of time, would oc- 
cupy twenty thousand years in passing from 
one of those worlds to ours. As you look 






THE CELESTIAL BODY. 199 

through the telescope, and see that point of in- 
effable brightness blazing in the depths of in- 
finity, and reflect that a ray of light, leaving 
that world at the birth of Adam, and shooting 
forward in its direct path with velocity which 
would compass this globe eight times in one 
second — that it has continued at that speed for 
months, and years, and lingering centuries, as 
generations have come and gone, as empires 
have flourished and decayed, and that even 
now it has not accomplished even one third of 
the journey, the imagination sinks bewildered 
and exhausted with the sublime contemplation. 
And yet that world may be in the remote 
frontier of God's empire ; and were you trans- 
ported to its hills, with the most powerful tel- 
escope which human skill has ever formed, 
you might not be able to discern, far away in 
the measureless distance, the resplendent city 
of our God ; but from that burning throne 
where Deity unveils its majesty, governing ev- 
ery world as if each world were the only ob- 
ject of the divine care — nay, watching over 
each individual, however humble he may be, 
with as much minuteness of attention as if 
that individual alone engrossed all the en- 
ergies of the divine mind — from that cen- 
tral court God's embassadors may unceasing- 



200 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ly wing their flight to all the provinces of his 
empire. 

We learn in the book of Daniel that, during 
the time in which Daniel was offering his even- 
ing prayer, the angel Gabriel was sent from 
the supreme heavens with a message to him. 
Thus he came from God's throne to this earth 
without apparently one moment being occu- 
pied in his flight. 

"The speed of angels Time counts not." 

We perhaps can get some faint glimpse of 
the speed of celestial motion from the facility 
with which we can transport our minds to any 
distant scene with which we have been famil- 
iar. It matters not how remote those scenes 
may be, instantaneously the spirit wings to 
them its flight, and all their attractions are 
opened before the mind's eye. The reader can 
instantly revisit the home of his childhood, 
however far away, though mountains rise and 
oceans roll between. There is the yard, and 
the garden, and the dear old home. There 
are father and mother again, seated with the 
family group around the fireside. The mind 
has, apparently without occupying an instant 
of time, passed over hundreds, even thousands 
of miles. It can as easily cross the ocean, and 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 201 

visit the most distant realms, as it can send its 
mental glance into the next room. All this 
the ethereal spirit can do, even in this world, 
when clogged by the fleshly body. 

It is not improbable that, in some similar 
way in the future world, the redeemed soul, 
wedded to a body of celestial perfection, can at 
will, and with a speed which time marks not, 
traverse all the abysses of infinite space, and 
visit the remotest orb which glows in the firma- 
ment of the Creator. 

It is an indisputable doctrine of Scripture 
that the redeemed in the future world will be 
equal to the angels. Hence we may cherish 
the hope that it will be our privilege hereafter 
to visit every luminary which glitters in the 
sky. We may yet be familiar with all those 
wondrous orbs which astronomy has revealed 
to us. We may find that all the worlds the tel- 
escope has unveiled, compared with the mighty 
whole, are no more than a handful of sand 
contrasted with the innumerable grains accu- 
mulated upon the ocean's shore ; and yet we 
may alight on every orb, luxuriate in their 
flowery vales, and be greeted by the hospital- 
ities of their thronging populations. 

Think me not fanciful in these representa- 
tions. Such are the visions which God has re- 



202 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

vealed to us to animate us to a holy life. Blind 
unbelief would reject an alluring heaven, that 
the mind -may continue to grope and delve 
amid the dust of earth. These are the views 
which are cherished by thousands of the most 
sober students of God's Word. Dr. D wight, 
who surely will riot be accused of visionary 
tendencies, says, 

" We may hereafter visit distant worlds with 
incomparably more ease than we can now pass 
from one continent to another, and find the 
oceans of space by which they are separated 
merely means of illustrating our activity and 
furnishing delightful opportunities of expati- 
ating at our pleasure." 

Such are some of the more prominent of the 
representations of the Bible respecting the spir- 
itual body. The vision we thus get, though 
dim, is indeed animating, for we know that 
even imagination can not exaggerate the glory 
and the blessedness of that state. When the 
soul is on fire with the glow of its ardent an- 
ticipations, we know that the reality will far 
surpass all that the heart can conceive. 

Christian, let this revelation of future bless- 
edness disarm time of its troubles. In perplex- 
ities, and disappointments, and thick-gathering 
clouds of earthly gloom, look forward to the 



THE CELESTIAL BODY. 203 

bright morning of the resurrection, to your 
emerging from the grave with a body fashion- 
ed like unto Christ's glorious body, spiritual, 
incorruptible, powerful, a fitting ally of a soul 
almost infinitely expanded in every perfection. 
Are you in trouble ? It is but for a moment. 
Do dark nights of sorrow overshadow you? 
Soon will the light of the glorious morning of 
the resurrection emblazon the skies and enrap- 
ture your heart. Be of good cheer. Let the 
knowledge of joy coming in the morning cheer 
you through the night. Gird up your strength, 
and smile at the passing momentary storm. 

And let this revelation of future blessedness 
animate you to fidelity, to toil, to prayer. What 
will all earthly interests avail you in that hour ? 
Piety will be then your only wealth, the only 
treasure of your heart. Look at your families, 
your children, your friends, your neighbors. 
You will meet them again on that morning, 
and they will be angels or fiends. The friends 
with whom you now are associated are either 
spirits of woe in mortal guise, journeying to 
interminable despair, or angel spirits, soon to 
throw off their mortal clogs, and to soar in the 
congenial element of their Father's home. 

And can any one be willing to barter all 
these joys of a heavenly home, this celestial 



204 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

dignity and glory, for the unsatisfying pleas- 
ures of a godless life? Look at the black 
hearse which bears the shrouded corpse to the 
grave, and reflect upon your own inevitable 
and speedy destiny. Oh, dying man, for what 
are you living ? For pleasure ? It is but the 
vapor of the morning. For honor ? There is 
no honor for him who shall awake at the arch- 
angel's trump to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt. For wealth? You brought nothing 
into this world, and you can carry nothing out. 
Your houses and stores will soon be burned 
up. Your lands will vanish in flame and 
smoke. The archangel's trumpet will soon 
pierce your ear, cold in death ; and the morn- 
ing of the resurrection and the throne of judg- 
ment will soon gleam upon your eye. Is it 
wise to be heedless, prayerless, irreligious ? Is 
it wise to bid defiance to the terrors of the day 
of endless doom? Is it wise to forget your 
immortality, and to live as 

" Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay?" 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 205 



CHAPTER X. 

HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 

The Cravings of the Soul. — Adam in Eden. — Poetic De- 
scription. — The new Eden. — The Nature of Heaven's En- 
joyments. — Peculiarity of the Divine Existence. — Heaven 
as a City. — Heaven a Scene of rural Beauty. — The Dis- 
coveries of modern Astronomy. — Jupiter. — The Sun. — 
Star -clusters. — Immensity of God's Works. — Philosoph- 
ical Testimony. — Scripture Testimony. 

Will earthly friendships be renewed in 
heaven? Are the ties which here on earth 
bind heart with heart, and the sympathies 
which cheer us on this terrestrial pilgrimage, 
to perish with the body in the grave, or to live 
with the immortal mind in heaven? No one 
has ever buried a friend without feeling the 
rush of these thoughts upon the soul. Nature 
has no question more earnest than this. The 
heart gives an instantaneous response. I must 
have, it says, the loved and the lost restored. 
Heaven's sun would be eclipsed ; a sombre day 
would darken all its vales and wither its flow- 
ers if those chords of affection, which have vi- 



206 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

brated so sweetly upon earth, are never to vi- 
brate there. 

There are some Christians who look forward 
with so much confidence to a reunion with 
friends in heaven, that the discussion of a ques- 
tion to their minds so plain seems to them 
quite needless ; but there are many other 
Christians who have very faint views of their 
heavenly home, and have great fears of dishon- 
oring the "spirituality of celestial joys by com- 
mingling with them any of the elements of 
earthly happiness. They think it safer to re- 
gard heaven simply as the place where they 
will be with their Savior, and they turn with 
alarm from even the vivid material delinea- 
tions which God's Word gives of that home of 
the blessed. 

The question, therefore, of the recognition 
of friends in heaven, involving, as that question 
does, the very nature of heaven, and the essen- 
tial character of its enjoyments, becomes one 
of the most important which can be presented 
to the human mind. God has not left us to 
grope our way in darkness upon a subject so 
vital as this. Both reason and revelation unite 
their most emphatic voices to instruct us upon 
this theme. 

1. Let us first contemplate the condition of 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 207 

Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. This 
world, the wreck of which, though God's curse 
rests upon it, is still so beautiful, was prepared 
for man — a mansion worthy of its divine Archi- 
tect. It was reared as a home, adapted in ev- 
ery respect to gratify all the wants of the noble 
beings who were to dwell upon it. The world 
being thus created and adorned, then came 
Adam, fashioned from God's hand, its lord and 
master. In delighted motion he, its brightest 
ornament, with godlike intelligence beaming 
from his eye, glided along the avenues whose 
beauties invited his steps. 

The fragrance of a blooming world was 
around him. His ear was filled with melody. 
Bounding with celestial instincts before him 
were animals of varied beauty, all emulous to 
minister to his pleasure. There were flowers, 
and fruits, and song; hills and vales, lakes 
and rivers, groves and bowers. It was a gar- 
den which God had planned and embellished 
as one of the ornaments of heaven, where an- 
gels might love to linger — a garden so beauti- 
ful that the Lord God himself, as revelation in- 
forms us, was attracted to its bowers in the 
" cool of the day." When the sun of Adam's 
first day sank behind the hills, and the stars 
beamed forth in the sky, the balmy air and fra- 



208 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

grant pillows invited to such, repose as a per- 
fect spirit only can know. 

But something was still wanting to complete 
the happiness of Adam. The body was per- 
fect in all its organization. The mind, ethereal 
in its powers, was the delighted recipient of all 
the knowledge rushing in upon it. The eye 
saw nothing but beauty. The ear heard noth- 
ing but melody. Every sense had its full in- 
dulgence. Yet there was one thing wanting — 
one thing, without which all else were but dust 
and ashes. 

Give me, said the heart, a friend. Without 
a companion with sympathetic soul, these flow- 
ers will soon fade upon my eye, this melody 
will fall mournfully upon my ear, and this 
garden of Eden will be a dreary place of exile, 
in which immortality will be a curse. It is 
not good, said God, that man should be alone. 
He gave him a friend ; and Eden now becomes 
indeed a paradise, and loved companionship 
gives flight to the swift- winged hours. Adam 
was then one of God's sinless children, and his 
wants were such wants as angels have. 

Yery beautifully has Campbell alluded to 
this loneliness of Adam in Eden before Eve 
was given to him as a companion : 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 209 

"Till Hymen brought his love-delighted hour, 
There dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower! 
In vain the viewless seraph lingering there, 
At starry midnight charm'd the silent air ; 
In vain the wild-bird caroled on the steep, 
To hail the sun, slow wheeling from the deep ; 
In vain, to soothe the solitary shade, 
Aerial notes in mingling measure play'd ; 
The summer wind that shook the spangled tree, 
The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee ; 
Still slowly pass'd the melancholy day, 
And still the stranger wist not where to stray. 
The world was sad ! the garden was a wild ! 
And man, the hermit, sighed, till woman smiled!"* 

This world is the same world upon which 
Eden bloomed, only now wilted by a curse. 
Eedemption shall take from the earth its male- 
diction, and Eden shall bloom in renewed love- 
liness, such as Adam and Eve never witnessed. 
Purified in the flames of the last conflagration, 
it shall emerge a new earth, to take its place 
again among the rejoicing morning stars. The 
green pastures and still waters of a celestial 
paradise shall again expand before the eye. 
There shall be groves vocal with sweeter songs, 
and scenes embellished with richer beauty than 
those which entranced Adam and Eve in the 
morning of their innocency. ' And over all 
there shall be spread the canopy of skies bril- 

* Pleasures of Hope, part ii. 

o 



210 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

liant with hitherto unknown splendor. Man, 
not only regenerated, but exalted to glory and 
power which he possessed not before the fall, 
shall again take possession of this renovated 
globe, thus prepared for its occupants rescued 
from sin through the sufferings of the Son of 
God. 

And shall there not be found in this new 
Eden the endearments of friendship? The 
first Eden is but the dim shadow of the far 
more effulgent second. We can not conceive 
that a new Eden should thus be reared shorn 
of its brightest joy; that when every other 
flower blooms, and every other joy is magni- 
fied, the pleasures of memory shall die and 
long-cherished loves perish! It can not be 
that those who have loved each* other upon 
earth shall meet side by side in that blissful 
world with no recognition. It can not be that 
those who have toiled, and wept, and prayed, 
and rejoiced together in this fallen world, will 
meet as strangers in the celestial paradise. 
There must be rapturous greetings there, such 
as angelic hearts only can know. 

2. The philosophy of the human mind in- 
structs us in the necessity of this recognition. 
What is it that constitutes personal identity? 
Why is one to-day the same person that he 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 211 

was yesterday ? You sleep ; you awake your- 
self, and not another. What constitutes your 
personal identity? It is memory; the con- 
sciousness of past sins over which you grieve ; 
of past joys still cheering the soul; of past 
friendships still fondly cherished. There is 
life in the past. You stand upon an eminence, 
and look back upon the path your weary feet 
have trod. Without this consciousness virtue 
can have no reward, without it vice can have 
no punishment. 

Thus it is utterly incredible that in heaven 
any Lethean wave shall obliterate the memo- 
ries of time, its loves, its hallowed griefs, its 
sacred ties, so strong that, when riven, soul and 
body seem sundered. Will there be no emo- 
tions of gratitude there in view of dangers 
through which God has safely led us here? 
And if you, by the power of memory and con- 
sciousness, retain your personal identity in 
heaven, and there look back upon your earth- 
ly home, and recall scenes of childhood, and 
youth, and maturity, and old age, parental 
names and features, and reminiscences of friends 
— if memory there, with all the other powers 
of the soul, is retained, exalted, and purified, 
will there not be blissful recognitions and en- 
thusiastic greetings as other redeemed ones, 



212 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

standing by your side, recall also tie scenes 
through, which you perhaps are now moving 
in sympathetic companionship? There seems 
to be thus a philosophical necessity for this 
recognition. 

3. The nature of heaven's enjoyments indi- 
cates this recognition. Friendship, loved com- 
panionship, the purest and loftiest of all the 
earthly sources of happiness, is ever represent- 
ed in the Bible as one of the most exalted and 
most ennobling of the joys of heaven. 

There is something in the divine existence 
itself, as the nature of our heavenly Father is 
revealed to us in Grod's Word, which, to my 
mind, throws interesting light upon this sub- 
ject. When I think of God as a solitary, all- 
pervading Spirit, companionless upon his eter- 
nal throne from eternity to eternity, with no 
congenial associate, and no coequal heart throb- 
bing responsive to his affections — true, there is 
sublimity in the conception, but I am over- 
whelmed, chilled, by the awful thought. Can 
this solitary monarch, with clouds and dark- 
ness around his throne, with no one to compre- 
hend his thoughts, no partner to enjoy his con- 
fidence — can he have sympathy for such wants 
as agitate my frail heart? Can I go to him 
with childlike confidence ? I fear and tremble 



HEAVENLY EECOGNITIOlSr. 213 

in the presence of a being so incomprehensible 
and august. 

But when I read that in the bosom of the 
Father dwells the coequal Son and Spirit ; that 
in the unity of the Deity there is the trinity of 
love, and sympathy, and companionship ; that, 
while God is one, and one only, there is in his 
very nature the provision for the yearnings of 
heart and the longings for fellowship, I feel a 
new sympathy in my heavenly Father. Like 
him, and with similar yearnings, he has form- 
ed me his child. The merely intellectual idea 
of an eternal spirit pervading infinity is changed 
into the warm reality of an affection-sharing 
and companion-loving Father. 

As thus, in the pages of revelation, I catch 
glimpses, delightful, though dim, of the friend- 
ship of united hearts even in the Godhead — of 
ties of union so mysteriously intimate that, 
while in love, and joy, and converse there are 
three, in purpose, and nature, and essence there 
is but one, thus combining the perfection both 
of companionship and of unity — my soul is 
cheered by the vision, and with love I fall be- 
fore the throne, crying Father! 

And thus it seems that in all the delinea- 
tions we have of heaven's enjoyments, the 
union of congenial hearts is an essential ele- 



214 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ment. Is heaven represented as a city? Its 
gates of pearl and streets of gold are thronged 
by the rejoicing 'multitudes, lovingly blending 
their songs. The avenues of this city of our 
God are lined with mansions which the divine 
Architect has reared, and cherubim and ser- 
aphim, in exulting bands, pass and repass those 
hospitable thresholds. The river of the water 
of life flows through the city, inviting to such 
festival joys as make glad the hearts of its in- 
habitants. 

Is heaven represented as a scene of rural 
beauty? There rise, in towering cliffs, the 
hills of Zion. Valleys, green and still, sweep 
along the declivities of the mountains, with 
groves, and lakes, and flowers, and birds filling 
the air with their songs, and embellishing the 
whole beauteous landscape with the brilliance 
of their plumage. And all this scene of peace 
and loveliness, the very thought of which now 
refreshes man's weary spirit, is enlivened by 
the presence of angel bands, who, in social joy, 
find all material sources of happiness infinitely 
magnified, and who pluck the fruits, and gath- 
er the flowers, and recline in the arbors which 
God has ripened, and painted, and embellished. 

And now the plumage of outspread pinions 
glitters in the air, as, soaring upward and on- 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 215 

ward in blissful association, they pass through 
realms of space limitless in extent, and crowd- 
ed to profusion with the wondrous architecture 
of the Almighty; and now they give utter- 
ance to their rapture in songs and hallelujahs, 
which, coming from the multitudinous voices 
of the blessed, cause even heaven's most dis- 
tant arches to resound with the harmony. 

Christian, canst thou gaze upon these scenes, 
and mingle with this throng, and aid to swell 
these anthems with the glorified friend by thy 
side, whose heart now throbs sympathetically 
with thine own, and yet there be no recogni- 
tion — memory dead, spiritual affection dead? 
You have wept, and prayed, and struggled for 
weary years that you might meet in this hap- 
py world, and, now that you have met, can it 
be that you know it not ? Has God made the 
heart to be thus treacherous to its noblest im- 
pulses ? No, no ; the sanctified love of earth 
will beam more brightly and glow more warm- 
ly in heaven. 

4. The discoveries of modern astronomy re- 
flect interesting light upon this subject. True 
science and revelation have ever been the 
handmaids of each other. God's words and 
his works are in harmony. They illustrate 
and explain each other. 



216 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

The Word of Grod assures us that many man- 
sions are reared for God's children, varying in 
glory, adapted to meet all the wants of the ce- 
lestial hierarchy, angel and archangel, cheru- 
bim and seraphim. Science affords us a few 
faint glimpses of their astonishing number and 
gorgeousness. 

Look at that planet which we have named 
Jupiter, with its soft and moonlike lustre. It 
seems but as a golden spangle upon the ebon 
sky. It is one of the mansions which our Fa- 
ther has reared. Science measures its distance, 
its magnitude, its capacity for receiving inhab- 
itants. To our questionings science responds 
that it is a spacious globe, nearly fifteen hund- 
red times larger than that upon which we 
dwell, affording ample accommodations for a 
population more than fifty times greater than 
all united who have existed upon this earth 
during the whole period since the creation. 
Who can imagine the grandeur of the hills 
and vales spread over this vast surface, or the 
joys of those probably sinless inhabitants who 
crowd its mansions ! 

From this beaming planet turn your atten- 
tion to the sun — that regal mansion which, 
from its illuminated windows, irradiates with 
floods of light all the members of the solar sys- 



HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. 217 

tern. Were this mansion empty, within its 
walls might be placed thirteen hundred thou- 
sand worlds as large as ours. Were the cen- 
tre of the sun placed where the centre of the 
earth now is, its circumference would extend 
one hundred and sixty thousand miles in ev- 
ery direction beyond the orbit swept by our 
moon, filling the whole of that space with its 
majestic mass. No human mind can compre- 
hend the magnitude of such an orb. 

According to the observations of Herschel, 
Arago, and others, the sun is an opaque and 
solid world, encompassed first by a vaporous 
element; then by luminous envelopes, from 
whence are radiated those floods of light which 
gleam upon the eye of countless myriads. The 
occasional openings in these luminous clouds, 
enabling us to look in upon the solid body of 
the sun, are supposed to be the cause of the 
dark spots upon the sun with which all are fa- 
miliar. Mountains and vales, embellished with 
celestial beauty, doubtless adorn its surface. 
No night probably ever darkens its sky ; no 
winter chills its air or blights its fruit. Surely 
a lofty race must people this realm — must re- 
joice in the apartments of this our Father's 
house. 

The variety in the structure of these worlds 



218 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

is apparently endless. Sirius is probably vast- 
ly larger than our sun, for it shines with a light 
sixty times more intense. There are twin 
suns and triple suns revolving around each 
other, but at such inconceivable distances from 
us that their planetary retinue of worlds can 
not be discerned. There are suns which the 
telescope opens to us, green, blue, purple, and 
orange, yellow and red. There are suns which 
shine with a revolving light, now beaming with 
inconceivable brilliance, and now fading into 
darkness. There are clusters of suns insulated 
in the heavens, bound together as a family in 
closest companionship, and yet in numbers so 
countless that astronomy speaks of them as 
"star dust." These flaming orbs, thus spread 
through infinity, Carlyle has called " the street- 
lamps in the city of our God." 

There are regions in the heavens far more 
densely filled with worlds than those upon 
which our eyes gaze. Herschel discovered a 
space, not larger than that occupied by our so- 
lar system, where there are fifty thousand suns 
brilliantly shining. Who can conceive the 
gorgeousness of such a scene ? Suppose that 
there were fifty thousand suns suddenly to 
flame up in our sky, some as near to us as the 
moon, and none farther distant than the re- 



HEAVENLY EECOGNITION. 219 

motest planet of our system. Night would im- 
mediately disappear forever. The reign of 
eternal sunshine, and such sunshine as no mor- 
tal imagination has ever yet conceived, would 
be established. 

Thus is immensity, through profundities of 
space which no imagination can conceive, filled 
with these mansions of God, scattered every 
where with creative profusion. We can not 
begin to compute their numbers. Millions 
upon millions are as nothing in their sum. 
Above, beneath, around us, infinity seems 
strewed with these glittering orbs. 

Now when we connect with these revelations 
of God's works the teachings of his Word, that 
from the grave the body is to arise purified, 
spiritualized, and to be as immortal as the soul 
itself; that, raised in honor, and glory, and 
power, it is to be winged for an eternal flight, 
we can not but follow it as it mounts exultant 
on triumphant wing to these distant worlds. 
You, oh Christian, as the child and the heir of 
Almighty God, are to inherit this universe. 
God has made all these mansions for you, his 
child. This orb of day is yours ; these planets, 
these stars, these newly-revealed firmaments of 
clustered suns are all your own, the palaces 
God has given in common to all his children. 

As other angels move from world to world 



220 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

in ministrations of duty and of pleasure, so 
may you be employed upon such, embassies, 
and be greeted with. such, welcomes as angels 
only can give. Such is the prospect unfolded 
before us in the career of immortality. And 
surely, in such residences of splendor, your 
heart glowing with affection, your soul regen- 
erated and purified from every stain, and your 
body made celestial, there will be scope for 
loving companionship such as now can be but 
faintly conceived. 

" It is impossible for immortal man, with the 
light of revelation as his guide, to doubt for a 
moment that on the celestial spheres his future 
is to be spent — spent, doubtless, in lofty inqui- 
ries, in social intercourse, in the renewal of do- 
mestic ties, and in the service of his Almighty 
Benefactor. With such a vista before us, so 
wide in its expanse, and so remote in its ter- 
mination, what scenes of beauty, what forms of 
the sublime, what enjoyments, physical and in- 
tellectual, may we not anticipate — wisdom to 
the sage, rest to the pilgrim, and gladness to 
the broken in heart."' 55 ' 

5. But to conclude : there are many passages 
of Scripture which will be considered decisive 
upon this question. David, upon the death of 
his child, comforted himself with the assurance, 

* "More Worlds than One," as quoted by Macdonald. 



HEAVENLY KECOGISTITION. 221 

"I shall go to him, but he shall not return to 
me." The anguish of the wicked, we are in- 
formed, shall be increased as they shall "see 
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob sitting down in 
the kingdom of God," while they are cast out. 
The rich man and Lazarus are represented as 
recognizing each other, though the great gulf 
was spread between them. Moses and Elias 
appeared together on the Mount of Transfig- 
uration, and were even recognized by the dis- 
ciples, who had never seen them before. Paul 
anticipated the pleasure of presenting to Christ 
the disciples who had been saved by his la- 
bors : " Lord, here am I, and the children thou 
hast given me." 

There is, therefore, evidence sufficient to re- 
move all reasonable doubt that the sanctified 
friendships of earth will be cemented anew 
in heaven. There shall the Christian meet 
his Christian friend in union more intimate 
and rapturous than earth hath ever known. 
In those blissful bowers, or soaring in those 
resplendent skies, or treading the golden pave- 
ments of the heavenly city, or in visiting the 
orbs which fill immensity — as the Christian 
moves through all these scenes, himself a lofty 
spirit, he shall find all these joys magnified by 
love, which is the essence of Deity and the at- 
mosphere of heaven. 



222 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The Doctrines of Christianity. — Evidence of their Reason- 
ableness. — The Duties Christianity enjoins. — The Meas- 
ures Christianity adopts. — The Christian Ministry. — The 
Church. — Ordinances of Christianity. — The Sabbath. — 
Baptism. — The Lord's Supper. — The Effects of Christian- 
ity. — Death of the Unbeliever. — Testimony of ancient 
Greeks. — The two Death-bed Scenes. 

Were not Christianity eminently a reason- 
able system, commending itself to the most en- 
lightened judgment of the mind, it could by no 
means maintain the sway which it has gained 
over the most intelligent and powerful portion 
of the globe. It is a reasonable system — rea- 
sonable in its doctrines, in the duties it requires, 
in its measures, its ordinances, and its effects. 

Look at the doctrines of Christianity. That 
the loadstone should always point to the north 
is a truth above reason, but not contrary to rea- 
son. That the senseless fibres of the peach- 
tree should in the dark ground select materials 
of beauty, and fragrance, and luxury, convey 
them up the trunk to the branch, and there un- 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 223 

fold them in a flower, and then mould them 
into fruit which charms the eye and melts upon 
the palate, is above reason, but not contrary to 
reason. Thus, in God's Word, there are doc- 
trines revealed above reason, but not contrary 
to reason. 

Does any one say explain the reasonable- 
ness of trinity in unity ? I reply, who can de- 
clare its unreasonableness ? The soul of man 
is complex — no one can tell how complex. 
Man seems to have a triune nature, body, intel- 
lect, and affections composing his single being. 
How, then, can any one say that the nature of 
Deity may not be complex, so that in some 
way, incomprehensible to us, Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost may constitute one God ? 

That this assertion is not unreasonable is 
evidenced from the fact that the most power- 
ful intellects on earth have given their assent 
to the Trinity. Who may pronounce what is 
reasonable, if Fenelon, Pascal, Melancthon may 
not. These men, whose teachings have illu- 
mined centuries, accept with homage the reve- 
lation of a trinity in the Godhead. 

Where can you find a natural philosopher 
of more renown than Eobert Boyle, or a states- 
man of more comprehensive views than Wil- 
berforce, or an orator of more commanding 



224 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

powers than Edmund Burke, or a metaphysi- 
cian of shrewder intellect than Bishop Butler, 
or a scholar of more varied attainments than 
Samuel Johnson, or a linguist who has explored 
wider fields of literature than William Jones ? 
yet they all declare that, to their minds, there 
is nothing unreasonable in the doctrine of the 
Trinity. 

This may be considered a test doctrine. That 
faith which for eighteen centuries has been the 
guide of the great majority of the wise and good 
in all lands ; which has been embraced by the 
ripest scholars, the most profound reasoners, the 
most distinguished philosophers — by statesmen 
and philanthropists of the highest name and 
note ; that faith which has sustained millions 
through the trials of life, and given them ex- 
ultation in the hour of death, surely must be 
pronounced to be at least reasonable. 

2. Christianity is reasonable in the duties 
which it enjoins. What are those duties? 
First, penitence. Have we not all sinned ? Do 
not our own consciences confirm the declara- 
tions of the Bible upon this point ? And is it 
unreasonable that we should go to our offend- 
ed Maker with a contrite spirit, and with the 
prayer, " O God, be merciful to me, a sinner?" 

Next to penitence comes faith. And what 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 225 

is faith? It is the childlike and cordial assent 
of the heart to the way of salvation which God 
has provided. "We can not be saved by works, 
for we have all broken the law. We are al- 
ready condemned. Our only refuge is in a 
pardon. God informs us on what conditions 
that pardon may be granted. His Son has 
died for us, to vindicate the majesty of the vi- 
olated law. Is it unreasonable that we should 
receive salvation humbly through faith in that 
Savior ? 

Look at the blood-bought throng in heaven, 
casting their crowns at the feet of their Ee- 
deemer, saying, "Thou art worthy, for thou 
wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, 
and people, and nation,"* and then can one 
say that it is unreasonable to rely upon the ef- 
ficacy of atoning blood? Will any mortal 
man venture to say, " I have no need of an 
atoning Savior ; I have no need of redemption 
by the blood of Jesus?" 

Next to faith, or rather in conjunction with 
it, is obedience — obedience to the eternal law 
of supreme love to God and universal love for 
man. It is surely reasonable that I should 
love that being who is my Creator and my 

* Rev., v., 9. 



226 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

daily benefactor, and that I should daily offer 
him the homage of an affectionate and grateful 
heart. It is surely reasonable that I should 
feel an interest in the temporal and eternal 
welfare of my fellow-man; that I should do 
every thing in my power, by my prayers, my 
example, and my efforts, to win all to Christ. 

3. Christianity is reasonable in its measures. 
An object may be good, and yet the measures 
adopted for the accomplishment of that object 
may be bad. The measures instituted for the 
promotion of Christianity are all good. 

Christ established the Gospel ministry. He 
set apart a body of men to be entirely conse- 
crated to the moral welfare of the community. 
They were to devote their whole time to this 
work, studying the Scriptures, preaching the 
Gospel, watching over the children and youth, 
visiting the sick and the afflicted. 

Is it not this institution which is spreading 
peace, and intelligence, and plenty over the 
hills and vales of our own land ? Is it not the 
influence of the preached Gospel which has 
rendered England and Scotland such bright 
spots upon this globe? Did not our system 
of common schools, the temperance reform, the 
Sabbath-school enterprise, the Seaman's Friend 
and Prison Discipline societies — those guardian 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 227 

angels of our land — did not they all, with, oth- 
er enterprises too numerous to be mentioned, 
originate in this institution? Were they not 
all called into life by the voice of the Chris- 
tian ministry from the bosom of the Christian 
Church ? 

What scheme can human intelligence im- 
agine better calculated than the Christian min- 
istry to promote the intellectual elevation and 
the moral improvement of any community? 
No one can statedly attend the faithful preach- 
ing of the Gospel without finding the mind en- 
larged, the heart purified, and the manners 
even ameliorated, and polished, and softened. 

Christ established a Church, the members 
of which are bound together by a public 
pledge. They are to meet together and pray 
for a divine blessing. They are to watch over 
one another, and encourage each other by their 
mutual exhortations and prayers. If men are 
interested in temperance, in politics, in philos- 
ophy, they necessarily form associations, and 
assemble for the promotion of these objects. 
Is it not reasonable, then, that those who are 
interested in religion, in their own eternal sal- 
vation and that of others, should consecrate 
their plighted faith to this noblest of enter- 
prises — should meet together to sing Zion's 



228 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

songs, to implore the aid of Zion's King, and, 
by mutual zeal, to animate to mutual fervor? 
Surely it is reasonable. 

As another measure, Christ requires each 
disciple, in his private capacity, to do every 
thing in his power to win others to the Savior. 
He is a laborer, to work till night come. He 
is a soldier who is enlisted for the war. As he 
sits by the fireside, as he visits the dwellings 
of his friends, as he meets his neighbors in the 
streets, as he sympathizes with the bereaved in 
the darkened chambers of death, he, with a 
warm heart — with zeal tempered by discretion 
— must seek to win all to piety. Shall I, as a 
temperance man, try to save my brother from 
temporal wretchedness, and shall I not, as a re- 
ligious man, endeavor to save him from eternal 
woe? 

These are the measures of Christianity. Sure- 
ly they are reasonable. They are calm, noise- 
less, unobtrusive, orderly, effective. They re- 
fine the mind, the manners, and the heart. 
They nerve the arm of industry. They cheer 
the circle of domestic love. They give full 
scope to the energy of man, and are in entire 
accordance with that delicacy, gentleness, and 
modesty which constitute the peculiar charm 
of woman. Let us adhere to them steadfastly, 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 229 

calmly, and forever ; for it is as true in philos- 
ophy as it is beautiful in poetry that 

' ' Stillest streams 
Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird 
Which flutters least is longest on the wing." 

4. Christianity is reasonable in its ordinances. 
The Sabbath, baptism, and the Lord's Supper 
may perhaps be considered the three essential 
ordinances of the Gospel. The Sabbath ! what 
has it not done for man ? You can find no na- 
tion without the Sabbath who are not unintel- 
ligent, degraded, and vicious. Look at the pa- 
gan islands of the Pacific — at Africa, from the 
Mediterranean to the Cape. Look at China 
and Japan, and at the robber hordes who roam 
the plains of Central Asia. 

You can find no people sacredly observing 
the Sabbath who are not temperate, industri- 
ous, and comfortable. In proof of this, con- 
template the Highlands of Scotland, the rural 
villages of Old England, and the prosperous 
and energetic towns of our own land. You 
find, in every community, that the moral and 
physical condition of the people keeps pace 
with the observance of the Lord's Day ; and 
when France, in her dark hour of infidelity, 
abolished the Sabbath, the result was so insup- 
portably disastrous that the Chamber of Dep- 



230 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

uties, as a measure of national safety, were 
compelled to reinstate its observance. 

A wise man has said, " He who despises cer- 
emonies knows not wliat lie despises." Prop- 
erty of any value can not be conveyed from 
one to another without some ceremony of con- 
veyance. A marriage union can not be con- 
summated without some ceremony indicative 
of that sacred tie. A temperance society can 
not be formed without some outward pledge 
of membership. 

And is it not reasonable, then, that our Sav- 
ior, when gathering his disciples from an op- 
posing world, and uniting them in the most sa- 
cred and indissoluble bands, should have insti- 
tuted some simple ceremony as an outward 
pledge and expression of this union? And 
what rite can be more simple, appropriate, 
and affecting than the rite of baptism ? 

The convert to Christ stands in the Church 
of God, and, in the presence of all the people, 
makes public profession of his penitence, his 
trust in the Eedeemer, and of his resolve, 
through the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to 
live henceforth a Christian life. The minister 
of Christ dips his hand into the font, and sprin- 
kles his brow with clean water in the name of 
God — Father, Son , and Holy Ghost. How beau- 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 231 

tiful this emblem of the sprinkling of the soul 
with the Savior's atoning blood 1 What can be 
more appropriate than this unostentatious rite ? 

Or, perhaps, cherishing different views, the 
little Christian band repair to a neighboring 
stream, hoping thus more closely to imitate the 
example of their Savior, who was baptized in 
Jordan. The officiating clergyman leads the 
disciple into the water, and, as he immerses 
him in the stream, the rejoicing young convert 
feels that, with Christ, he is buried in baptism 
from sin and the world, but to rise again from 
that watery grave in newness of life. 

Or, perhaps, cherishing views still a little 
different, the young Christian is led a few steps 
into the stream, and kneels in the water. The 
minister, with a cup or with the hollow of his 
hand, in three outpourings upon his head, bap- 
tizes him in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, trusting that thus 
emblematically the influences of the Holy Spir- 
it are poured out upon him. 

Now, whichever of these modes is adopted 
in the consecration of the young convert to the 
Savior, who can fail to see its efficaciousness 
and its adaptation to impress the soul with a 
sense of the solemnity of the act and of the re- 
sponsibility it thus assumes ? 



232 PKACTICAL CHKISTIANITY. 

The Lord's Supper is another of the ordi- 
nances of the Gospel. The experience of the 
world has decided that, to perpetuate the re- 
membrance of important events, there must be 
some commemorative celebration. We have 
our anniversaries and our jubilees. Human 
nature requires them. Is it not then reason- 
able that our Savior, who, by his sufferings 
and death, made atonement for the sins of the 
world, should establish some ordinance com- 
memorative of that event, to keep in memory 
the great atonement which Christ has made 
and the duties consequent to his disciples ? 

And what rite could be more significant and 
efficacious than the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper? It involves no ostentatious parade 
or burdensome expense. As the disciple par- 
takes of these memorials of a Savior's love,, the 
fountains of Christian emotion are unsealed, his 
thoughts recur to the scenes at Calvary, and 
gratitude inspires the exclamation, 

" When I view my Savior bleeding 
For my sins upon the tree, 
Oh, how wondrous, how exceeding 
Great his love appears to me." 

Certainly the ordinances of the Gospel are 
reasonable. 

5 Christianity is reasonable in its effects. 



EEASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 233 

Look at this worldling, prayerless, Bibleless, 
godless, indifferent respecting his own eternal 
interests, and utterly regardless of that of his 
fellow-men. He becomes a Christian. What 
is the effect upon his character ? He is a pen- 
itent for sin, and hungers and thirsts for right- 
eousness. Love for God warms his heart. He 
establishes family prayer. He seeks to win his 
children and his neighbors to piety. He loves 
to associate with his Christian friends in the 
evening prayer-meeting and the Bible lecture, 
and strives in all ways to become conformed 
to the will of God. 

Go with me to the dying chamber of this 
unbeliever. His threescore years and ten of 
toil and conflict are passed, and, in infirmity, 
poverty, and pain, he is now waiting to die. 
His wife and children have gone before him. 
They have perished, as he supposes, like veg- 
etables and brute animals — passed away into 
annihilation ; and he has no hope of ever see- 
ing them again. The companions of his infi- 
delity have either long since perished, or have 
abandoned him in these hours of gloom and 
suffering. In looking back upon the past there 
is nothing to cheer him. The present is all 
solitude and hopelessness; the future presents 
but the abyss of annihilation. He has no God, 



234 PKACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

no hope. Such is man without Christianity ; 
for there is no one of my readers who will 
imagine that, if Christianity be false, there is 
any other religion which can be true. The 
more culture of soul, and warmth of affection, 
and elevation of nature such a man has, the 
more doleful is his condition. To use the 
beautiful verse of Campbell, 

" There live, alas ! of heaven-directed mien, 
Of cultured soul, and sapient eye serene, 
Who hail thee, Man ! the pilgrim of a day, 
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay, 
Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower, 
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower ; 
A friendless slave, a child without a sire, 
Whose mortal life and momentary fire 
Light to the grave his chance-created form, 
As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm ; 
And, when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er, 
To night and silence sink for evermore." 

Such is the condition of man, living or dy- 
ing, without Christianity. The more noble his 
aspirations, and the more exalted his powers, 
the more deplorable is his doom. His glow- 
ing love, his fond memories, his powers of hope 
and anticipation, do all but add intensity to his 
misery. The pages of biography are filled 
with the melancholy developments of death- 
beds whence souls, unsustained by Christian- 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 235 

ity, take the awful leap in the dark. Who can 
read without melancholy emotions the lamenta- 
tion of the Greek poet, written more than two 
thousand years ago ? As he compares the en- 
tire extinction of his being — to which he sup- 
poses himself to be doomed at death — with the 
perpetual renovation of nature, he exclaims, 

* ' Alas ! the tender herbs and flowering tribes, 
Though crush'd by Winter's unrelenting hand, 
Revive and rise when verdant zephyrs call ; 
But we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, 
Bloom, flourish, fade, and fall ; and then succeeds 
A long, long, silent, dark, oblivious sleep — 
A sleep which no propitious power dispels, 
Nor changing seasons, nor revolving years." 

Sophocles, the most renowned of the Grecian 
dramatic poets, and almost equally renowned 
as a statesman and a philosopher, closed a ca- 
reer of eighty years, which the world has called 
brilliant, five centuries before the birth of our 
Savior; but, unenlightened by Christianity, 
there was no future opening before him, and, 
as he sank into the rayless grave, he left be- 
hind him the following pathetic testimony : 

1 t Man's happiest lot is not to be ; 

And, when we tread life's thorny steep, 
Most bless'd are they who, earliest free, 
Descend to death's eternal sleep." 



236 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

How differently from this does the Christian 
view time and eternity, death and the grave ! 
As the martyr Stephen sinks, stunned and dy- 
ing, beneath the stones hurled on him by his 
murderers, he sees the heavens opened, and 
the Son of Man standing on the right hand of 
God. " Lord Jesus," he exclaims, " receive my 
spirit," and thus he falls asleep. 

As Paul, at the close of a life so nobly de- 
voted to the interests of humanity, saw the 
grave of cruel martyrdom opening before him, 
triumphant over the King of Terrors, he says, 
in a farewell letter to Timothy, his beloved son 
in the Grospel, 

" For I am now ready to be offered, and the 
time of my departure is at hand. I have 
fought a good fight; I have finished my 
course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, 
but unto all them that love his appearing."* 

And again this Christian man, as he beholds 
immortality unfolding so gloriously before him, 
in an exultant burst of rapture, which has 
echoed down through all the ages to the pres- 
ent hour, cries out, 

* 2 Tim., iv., 6. 



BEASONABLENESS OF CHKISTIANITY. 237 

" Death is swallowed up in victory. O 
death, where is thy sting? O grave, where 
is thy victory ? But thanks be to God, who 
giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

Such is the effect which Christianity pro- 
duces. A few years ago the writer of these 
pages was called to the dying bed of an aged 
and impenitent sinner. He had nearly num- 
bered his threescore years and ten, and his gray 
locks hung thinly around his brow, furrowed 
by the cares of so long a life. By unremitted 
toil and rigid economy from his early youth 
he had acquired a fortune, and his treasured 
thousands were invested in the most safe and 
lucrative stocks. And now he was dying, and 
his only and spendthrift son was impatiently 
awaiting his father's death that he might grasp 
the hoarded gold. 

Conscience, long silenced, had at last awoke 
as the hour of death drew near, and was re- 
proaching him in her most remorseful tones. 
As I entered his chamber the wretched man 
looked up to me, with anguish visible in every 
feature, and abruptly cried out, 

" O pray for me, pray for me ! I am dying, 
and I am going to hell I" 

Shocked at such a salutation, I endeavored 



238 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

to guide the thoughts of the dying man to the 
Savior, saying, 

" Grod is merciful. His very nature is love. 
He loves you, his child, so much that he has 
given his Son to die for you, to make atone- 
ment for all your sins. And now, even in this 
eleventh hour, all you have to do is in peni- 
tence to implore his forgiveness, and accept 
Christ as your Savior, and God will forgive 
you, and adopt you as his son and heir." 

"But I have rejected that Savior," was the 
almost phrensied reply. " I have rejected him 
again and again, knowing that I was doing so. 
The Spirit has plead with me, and I knew that 
it was the Spirit's pleadings, and yet I have 
grieved that Spirit away. I have sinned away 
the day of grace, and there is no more mercy 
for me. Oh, hell, hell, must I dwell in its de- 
vouring flames?" 

u God assures us," I rejoined earnestly, " that 
he takes no pleasure in the death of the wick- 
ed. He loves all his children, and is infinitely 
desirous that all should return to him and be 
happy. Jesus has died for just such sinners as 
you are, even for the chief of sinners, and he 
assures you that whosoever cometh to him he 
will in no wise cast out." 

" And that Savior," the dying man exclaim- 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 239 

ed, " I have rejected, denied, derided. I have 
known my duty, and yet would not do it. And 
now I have no heart to love God ; I only fear 
his frown. I know that I am utterly unfit for 
heaven. I dread hell with unutterable horror, 
and yet I must go there." 

Then, covering his head with his bed-clothes, 
the whole bed shook with the convulsions of 
his dreadful anguish. I stood overwhelmed 
with the painful scene, knowing not what to 
say or what to do. At length I said, 

" My friend, shall I pray for you?" 

" Yes," he energetically replied, " pray, pray ; 
it may be that God will answer your prayers, 
but he never will, he never can hear mine." 

I offered a short prayer, every sentence of 
which was interrupted by the groans of the dy- 
ing man. The next day I called again. It 
was a clear, cold morning of winter, and the 
ground was covered with the frosted snow. As 
I entered the apartment of death, the scene was 
indeed changed. At midnight the despairing 
spirit had taken its flight in the tumult of its 
woe, and had ascended to the bar of God, there 
to answer for the mercies and the pleadings of 
threescore years and ten. The lifeless frame, 
sheeted for the grave, was cold and silent be- 
fore me. On the next day the body was buried 
beneath the icy ground. 



240 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Such, scenes are not rare. There are few 
ministers of the Gospel who have not witness- 
ed them. But, from this painful spectacle, let 
me introduce the reader to another dwelling, 
where the Christian is dying — where death has 
lost its sting, and comes, a welcome messenger, 
to convey the immortal spirit to its celestial 
home. A mother, who has numbered but 
thirty years, and who has all the charms which 
earth can give clustered around her, is dying 
of consumption. Her husband, prosperous in 
his business, is able to gratify every desire of 
his family, and finds congenial spiritual joys 
with his devoted Christian wife. One little 
son and two daughters of great promise enliven 
their fireside. 

The dying mother is in character every thing 
which husband, or child, or friend could wish. 
She is modest, warm-hearted, unobtrusive. Her 
mind is highly cultivated, her manners gentle, 
polished, and winning ; and she is ever ready, 
with woman's delicate affection, to minister to 
the wants of others. The fireside of home, the 
chamber of sickness, the house of sorrow, are 
ever blessed by her sympathy. 

But Consumption has marked her for his 
own. The hectic flush is on her emaciate 
cheek; and as she reclines upon her pillow, 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 241 

fanned by the gentle southern breeze which en- 
ters the open window of her room, she looks 
upon the rose-bud blooming upon the shrub- 
bery before her, and knows that before its 
leaves shall fall her body will be in the tomb. 

As I one afternoon entered her chamber, 
when the hour of death was near, she turned 
to me, and with a smile, as if an angel from 
heaven dwelt in that dying frame, said, 

"It is a very pleasant thing to die. Grod 
can take infinitely better care of my dearest 
husband and my dear little ones than I can, 
and I am so sure that he will order all in wis- 
dom and love that I am full of happiness ; and 
when my friends," she continued, "speak to 
my dear little children, after I am gone, about 
my death, I hope they will speak cheerfully 
and with a smiling countenance, that my chil- 
dren may have pleasant associations connected 
with my departure; for it is very pleasant, 
very 'pleasant indeed^ to die and go home to 
heaven." 

And now the hour has come for her to 
sleep in Jesus. She says to her mother, who 
was with her in this last scene, 

" Will you call my dear husband and chil- 
dren, for I feel that I am dying?" 

As, overwhelmed with grief, yet striving to 

Q 



242 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

conceal their tears, they enter her chamber, she 
says, 

" I feel that I am dying. I can not describe 
my sensations, for they are altogether peculiar ; 
but in a few moments I am sure that my spirit 
will leave the body. Do not weep for me. It 
will be but a few days before I shall welcome 
you to that happy, happy home to which I am 
going, and then we shall be separated no more 
forever." 

She presses the hand of her husband to her 
pale, thin lips, imprints a mother's last earthly 
kiss upon the fair foreheads of her weeping 
children, and, with such a smile as heavenly 
joy alone can awaken lingering upon her 
cheek, is gone. 

Gone where ? The angel messengers hover- 
ing around that bed have borne the spirit in 
resounding triumph through the skies. The 
acclamations of cherubim and seraphim have 
welcomed the advent of that redeemed immor- 
tal, as she mounts exultant on triumphant 
wing to her home in heaven. From the lips 
of all the angelic host there bursts the cry, 

"0 death, where is thy sting? grave, 
where is thy victory ?" 

Such are the effects which Christianity pro- 
duces. Is not this a reasonable religion — rea- 



REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 243 

sonable in its doctrines, its duties, its measures, 
its ordinances, and its effects? What excuse, 
then, reader, can you have for not regulating 
your life by its teachings ? Perhaps every one 
who reads this book will say, 

"I do perfectly know that all this is true, 
and that I ought to embrace this religion, and 
live for heaven." 

You know your Master's will. How can 
you then venture to disobey it ? The Bible is 
a plain book, and conscience pleads its truths, 
and yet the proud heart refuses to submit to 
Christ. It is a terrible position for one to be 
in, the position of open defiance to the author- 
ity of God. Can this unnatural rebellion long 
continue as now ? It can not. God's forbear- 
ance will not last forever. His spirit will not 
always strive. Heaven's gates are now open. 
Many with joy are entering in. Soon the door 
will be shut ; and where will you then be, im- 
penitent sinner ? In outer darkness, in weep- 
ing and wailing, in hopeless and eternal despair. 



244 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 

External Evidences of Christianity. — Edom in its Power. — 
Prophetic Denunciations. — Utter Desolation. — Testimony 
of Volney. — Burckhardt and Seetzen. — Grandeur of the 
Ruins. — Petra. — Testimony of Laborde. — The Traveler 
Stephens. — Sublimity of Solitude and Decay. — Scenes in 
Ancient Petra. — Appeal to the Reader. 

Though it be the inward witnessing of the 
soul to the power and the truth of Christianity 
which constitutes the essential evidence upon 
which all Christian hearts place their reliance, 
still there are lines of purely intellectual evi- 
dence in the highest degree logical and con- 
vincing. These external arguments are so ir- 
refutable that thousands of men, of the most 
exalted mental powers, have been constrained 
to give their assent to Christianity intellectual- 
ly, even while unwilling to submit their hearts 
and lives to its sway. The proof, from exter- 
nal sources, of the divine origin of Christianity 
has signally triumphed over all the efforts of 
its foes. This triumph is so eminent that all 



THE VOICE OF PKOPHECY. 245 

of the most powerful and intellectual nations on 
the globe have been thus constrained to become 
nominally Christian. 

One of the most important of the external 
evidences in behalf of the Bible is to be found 
in the fulfillment of prophecy. Good men, the 
servants of God, speaking by inspiration, fore- 
told with great minuteness events which should 
transpire long years after they had gone down 
into the grave. The accurate fulfillment of 
these predictions proves that they spake by 
inspiration, and that, consequently, whatever 
they said is to be received as a message from 
God. 

The advent of the Savior, and all the im- 
portant events of his wonderful life, were thus 
foretold nearly a thousand years before his 
birth. The fall of flourishing empires was not 
unfrequently announced with great minuteness 
of detail. One of the most remarkable of these 
predictions is that relating to the kingdom of 
Edom, or Idumea, as it was also called. The 
researches of modern travelers amid the ruins 
of past empires have brought to light facts 
which illustrate these prophecies, and show the 
astonishing accuracy with which they have 
been fulfilled. 

The kingdom of Edom was an extensive 



246 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

country east of Palestine. Three thousand 
years ago it was inhabited by the most power- 
ful nation then upon the globe. Even in the 
days of Moses this kingdom was extolled for 
its wealth, luxuriance, and beauty ; its streams 
were fringed with verdure, and decorated with 
villages alive with the hum of happy industry ; 
its cities were gorgeous in architectural splen- 
dor, and rich in a commerce which extended 
throughout the then known world. Virgil 
sings the praises of its waving harvests and its 
metropolitan refinement and opulence. Lucan, 
another Eoman poet, who wrote about the time 
of our Savior, describes it as one of the most 
proud, wealthy, and magnificent of Oriental 
empires. 

As Edom lay on the direct route between 
the cities which lined the shores of the Med- 
iterranean and the wealth of the Indies, two 
important Eoman roads, solidly paved, had 
been constructed through the territory. It was, 
in fact, the great thoroughfare of the world's 
commerce, ever thronged by companies of mer- 
chants and by long lines of caravans. These 
pavements often resounded with the tramp of 
the legions of the Caesars, and with the rum- 
bling of their enginery of war. The ruins of 
its cities, which still retain imposing but mel- 



THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 247 

ancholy grandeur, having survived the lapse 
of two thousand years, prove that it was enti- 
tled to the pre-eminence which it claimed over 
all the East in its massive and enduring archi- 
tecture. 

Such was ancient Edom. While in this con- 
dition of fertility, of prosperity, and of high 
civilization, and while causes were in operation 
to render its downfall apparently impossible, 
the prophets of God announced openly to Edom 
and to the world the following denunciations : 

" Because that Edom hath dealt against the 
house of Judah — therefore, thus saith the Lord 
God, I will also stretch out mine hand upon 
Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it ; 
and I will make it desolate from Teman. Thou 
shalt be desolate, O Mount Seir, and all Idumea, 
even all of it."* 

"For my sword shall be bathed in heaven; 
behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and 
a great slaughter shall be in the land of Idu- 
mea. From generation to generation it shall 
lie waste, and none shall pass through it forev- 
er and ever ; but the cormorant and the bittern 
shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall 
dwell in it. And he shall stretch out upon it 
the line of confusion and the stones of empti- 

* Ezekiel, xxv., 12; xxxv., 15. 



248 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

ness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the 
kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her 
princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall 
come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles 
in the fortresses thereof. And it shall be a 
habitation of dragons and a court for owls."* 

" For lo ! I will make thee small among the 
heathen, and despised among men. Thy ter- 
ribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of 
thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts 
of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill. 
Though thou shouldst make thy nest as high 
as the eagle, I will bring thee down from 
thence, saith the Lord. Also, Edom shall be 
a desolation. Every one that goeth by it shall 
be astonished."f 

Such were the denunciations against Edom, 
when no human foresight could have predict- 
ed its downfall, but when, on the contrary, all 
earthly influences seemed to tend to its ag- 
grandizement. Let us now see how the lapse 
of time has wrought out the fulfillment of this 
prophecy. For many ages Edom, having crum- 
bled to decay through the agency of the sword, 
pestilence, and famine, remained in such a state 
of desolation that no traveler was able even to 
visit it. Centuries lingered away, while ser- 

* Isaiah, xxxiv. f Jeremiah, xlix. 



THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 249 

pents crawled through her mouldering palaces, 
and brambles choked her thoroughfares, and 
the wailings of the storm alone disturbed the 
silence of her deserted chambers. Even as late 
as the time when Bishop Newton wrote his 
dissertation upon the prophecies no informa- 
tion could be obtained respecting that country ; 
but the enterprise of modern travelers has 
braved the perils which environ the doomed 
land, and has opened to the world amazing de- 
velopments of the minute truth of prophecy. 

Volney was the first who called public at- 
tention to Edom. He was an infidel. Being 
but slightly acquainted with the prophecies of 
the Old Testament, he was not at all aware 
that in the developments he was making in 
his " Euins of Empires 77 he was but confirming 
that faith which he wished to destroy. He en- 
deavored thoroughly to explore the country, 
but all his efforts were in vain. After sur- 
mounting innumerable difficulties and braving 
many perils, he could force his way no farther 
than to the borders of the desolate region, and 
contented himself with reporting the stories he 
had heard from the vagabond Arabs, who had 
prowled over its burning sands. This great 
thoroughfare of the world's travel — these paved 
roads, which for ages had been thronged with 



250 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

merchants, and travelers, and richly-freighted 
caravans, and which had echoed with the 
tramp of Eome's military legions, were now 
closed impenetrably by desolation and dan- 
gers. How striking the fulfillment of the pre- 
diction, 

"From generation to generation it shall lie 
waste, and none shall pass through it forever 
and ever!" 

"No traveler," says Volney, "has yet visit- 
ed Edom ; but it well merits such an attention; 
for, from the report of the Arabs, there are to 
the south of the Eed Sea upward of thirty cit- 
ies absolutely deserted." 

"Thy cities," said the prophecy, written 
more than a thousand years before, "shall be 
desolate." 

"The Arabs," continues Volney, "sometimes 
make use of the ruins to fold their cattle, but 
in general avoid them, in consequence of the 
enormous scorpions or dragons with which they 
swarm." 

The prophecy says, " It shall be a habitation 
of dragons." 

It is with extreme difficulty and danger that 
any traveler, even now, penetrates this region. 
Many have attempted it in vain. Others have 
but cautiously entered the doomed land, and 



THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 251 

have then been compelled to flee precipitately 
from its accumulating perils. The renowned 
Oriental travelers Burckhardt and Seetzen have 
explored this blighted realm perhaps more 
thoroughly than any others, and the account 
which they give of the sublimity of its desola- 
tion corroborates the words of the prophecy 
down even to the minutest particulars. The 
whole region they found to present an entire 
aspect of solitude and abandonment, with the 
exception of but one place, which contained a 
few straggling, starving inhabitants. That place 
was Teman. 

The prophecy says, "I will make thee deso- 
late from Teman." 

In the interior of this country, thus blighted 
by the denunciations of an offended God, they 
found the ruins, the magnificent ruins, of prob- 
ably the most wonderful city ever known upon 
this globe — the ancient Petra, the once world- 
renowned metropolis of this populous and pow- 
erful empire. 

In a vast, gloomy ravine, surrounded by pre- 
cipitous, sun -blackened, storm -drenched cliffs, 
they discovered the remains of this city — re- 
mains which had been buried for ages ; not, like 
those of Herculaneum and Pompeii, beneath 
the ashes and lava of Vesuvius, but buried still 



252 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

more sublimely in the silence and solitude of 
the desert, where the sun glared through the 
long autumnal day, and the storm, unheard by 
human ears, howled through the black night ; 
where summers and winters came and went, 
and century after century lingered away, and 
no voice was heard there, and no foot pressed 
pavement or hall. 

Awe - stricken, the travelers gazed upon 
houses, temples, palaces, hewn out of the solid 
rock. A theatre was discovered, chiseled into 
the cliff, capable of containing three thousand 
spectators. There were halls, and chambers, 
and corridors, embellished with every variety 
of architectural ornament. Statues, columns, 
and entablatures, gorgeously carved, glittered 
in the sunlight upon the fagade of the precipice 
at all heights from the level of the valley up 
to an elevation in the clefts of the rock which 
appeared utterly inaccessible. 

In one of these excavated residences there 
was found a banqueting hall sixty feet in 
length, and of proportionate breadth. There 
were saloons for revelry, and chambers for re- 
pose. There were warerooms for the mer- 
chant, and stables where Splendor housed her 
chariots, and where the proudly-caparisoned 
steed pawed and neighed. How strikingly do 



THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 253 

these discoveries illustrate the otherwise ob- 
scure prophecy, 

" O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the 
rock, that holdest the height of the hill, though 
thou shouldst build thy nest as high as the 
eagle, I will bring thee down !" 

Subsequently this wonderful region was vis- 
ited by Irby and Mangle. They also entered 
the silent streets of Petra. Their account mi- 
nutely confirms the statements of their prede- 
cessors. They record that the base of these 
precipitous cliffs was wrought out in all the 
symmetry and regularity of art; with colon- 
nades, and pedestals, and ranges of corridors, 
adhering to the perpendicular surface of the 
cliff and rising to the clouds. They ascended 
long flights of steps chiseled out of the rock, 
and which conducted to apartments where the 
eagle loved to wing its flight and build its 
nest. 

Some of the excavated residences, ample in 
dimension and gorgeous in embellishment, had 
evidently been the home of opulence and lux- 
ury. In others, more humble in size and as- 
pect, the artisan had toiled, and slept, and ate 
his frugal fare. The rocks were hollowed out 
into innumerable chambers of different dimen- 
sions, whose entrances were variously, richly, 



254 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

and fantastically decorated with every imagi- 
nable order of architecture. 

Thus stand, at this hour, these deserted halls. 
No human being lives in them or near them. 
Three thousand years ago opulence and fash- 
ion filled those dwellings, and the world's busy 
clamor and loud gayety resounded through those 
thronged streets. In those luxurious halls, then 
gorgeously furnished, brilliantly illumined, and 
echoing with music's voluptuous swell, young 
men and maidens met, with sanguine hopes, 
and bright imaginings, and throbbing hearts. 
The joy of the bridal was there. The tears 
and sobbings of the dying chamber were there. 
The tide of active life, in never-ending ebb and 
flood, surged along those polished pavements. 
But God had said, 

"Edoni shall be a desolation — no man shall 
abide there."* 

Withered by the doom, life disappeared. 
Solitude and silence commenced their reign. 
Lingering ages then rolled over the desolated 
realm, while no footfalls were heard in street 
or hall, save when the roving Arab looked in 
upon them, and, frightened by their sepulchral 
silence, hastened away. 

The prediction respecting the downfall of 
* Jeremiah, xlix., 17. 



THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 255 

this doomed empire extended even to the most 
minute details. The pen of the historian could 
hardly describe the present condition of deso- 
late Petra more accurately than it will be found 
to be described by the pen of the prophet in 
the Old Testament. 

"But the cormorant and the bittern shall 
possess it; the owl also and the raven shall 
dwell in it — and thorns shall come up in her 
palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses 
thereof; and it shall be a habitation of dragons 
and a court for owls — there shall the vultures 
also be gathered."* 

"The cormorant," says Burckhardt, "is met 
in immense numbers. They fly in such large 
flocks that the Arab boys frequently kill two 
or three at a time by merely throwing a stick 
among them." 

"Eagles, hawks, and owls," say Irby and 
Mangle, "were soaring above our heads, seem- 
ingly annoyed at any one approaching their 
lonely habitation." 

"The thorns," says Laborde, "rise to the 
same height with the columns; creeping and 
prickly plants hide the remains of the works 
of man. The brambles climb to the tops of 
the monuments, grow upon the cornices, and 
conceal the base of the columns." 

* Isaiah, xxxiv., 11-15. 



256 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

" The scorpions," says Volney, " still called 
fiery, from the terrible inflammation of their 
bite, are so numerous that the Arabs avoid the 
ruins in consequence of the multitude with 
which they swarm." 

There are generally associated with mould- 
ering ruins, which bear the impress of uncount- 
ed centuries, emotions of awe and reverence. 
The spirits of the departed people them, and 
we wander through vaults, saloons, and turret- 
ed chambers venerating the grandeur and sub- 
limity of decay. But God had said, 

"I will make thee despised among men."* 

And Laborde testifies that the Arabs give to 
these ruins a ridiculous and indecent name. 
Thus, in unnatural correspondence with the 
prediction, the semi-barbaric prowler over the 
desert points to these awful memorials of the 
past with derision and scorn. 

"He shall stretch forth upon it," writes the 
inspired penman, "the line of confusion and 
the stones of emptiness." 

How graphic does this language, otherwise 
obscure, now become when we see these mass- 
ive dwellings, hewn out of the solid rock, emp- 
ty and desolate, and fragments of columns, and 
huge stones scattered over the foundations of 
* Jeremiah, xlix., 15. 



THE VOICE OF PBOPHECY. 257 

long lines of buildings, and over the vestiges 
of paved streets. The darkness of the predic- 
tion is illumined by the blaze of its fulfillment. 

Our own illustrious traveler, Stephens, has 
visited Petra. " I would," he writes, " that the 
skeptic could stand, as I did, in the midst of 
the ruins of this city among the rocks, and 
open the sacred books, and read the records of 
the inspired penman, written when this now 
desolate place was one of the greatest cities in 
the world. I see the scoff arrested. His cheek 
turns pale, his lip quivers, and his heart quakes 
with fear as the ruined city cries out to him in 
a voice loud and fearful as that of one risen 
from the dead. Though he would not believe 
Moses and the prophets, he believes the hand- 
writing of God himself, in the desolation and 
eternal ruin around him." 

Such is a brief exhibition of one of the most 
modern developments of the fulfillment of 
prophecy. There is thus opened to us in these 
later ages of the world a new leaf of demon- 
strative evidence of the truth of revealed re- 
ligion. 

Thousands of years ago God caused the 
mausoleums of the Pharaohs to be reared, and 
had chiseled into the solid rock of those stu- 
pendous fabrics the history of Egypt, where ev- 
E 



258 PEACTICAL CHEISTIANITY. 

ery eye could see those mysterious Hieroglyph- 
ics — so mysterious, so inexplicable, that subse- 
quent interpolation or forgery became physic- 
ally impossible. He then allowed century aft- 
er century to pass slowly over them, while the 
generations which came and disappeared gazed 
in ignorant wonder upon the unknown sym- 
bols ; and now, after the lapse of four thousand 
years, God has caused these hieroglyphics to 
be deciphered, thus compelling sculptured pyr- 
amid, mausoleum, shaft, and obelisk to testify, 
beyond the possibility of a doubt, to the au- 
thenticity and the veracity of the ancient Scrip- 
tures. 

The same divine wisdom guided the artisans 
of Edom in their labor of ages, while hewing 
from the flinty rock the imperishable chambers 
of Petra, and decorating them with carvings 
and statuary, and every variety of architec- 
tural ornament, to be the irrefutable evidence, 
through all time, of the opulence and the pow- 
er of those who once inhabited these dwell- 
ings ; and then he swept their countless popu- 
lation into the ocean of oblivion ; and then he 
surrounded these massive works with the sol- 
itude and the silence of the desert; and then 
he swept long centuries over them of utter des- 
olation ; and now he has brought them out to 



THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 259 

the view of the astonished world, and we find 
in the Bible their history, their doom, their 
pristine splendor, and their present decay so 
minutely recorded as to afford new and mirac- 
ulous evidence of the truth of God's Word. 

It is thus that Grod has carefully strewed the 
evidences of revealed religion along the path 
of time. It is thus, as Newton has beautifully 
expressed it, that " prophecy is a growing evi- 
dence." All along the track of the ages which 
have passed away, the fulfillment of the Old 
Testament prophecies has been shedding abroad 
the light of its resistless argument in attestation 
of the divine authority of the Bible ; and there 
are now many prophecies in the obscurity of 
unfulfillment whose elucidation may be re- 
served for the benefit of generations yet un- 
born. 

Eeader, let your thoughts turn back, through 
the lapse of centuries, to the time when the 
. metropolis of Bdom was in the meridian of its 
glory. Think of the pleasure-parties saunter- 
ing upon those cliffs in the evening moonlight, 
who trod those marble floors in the dance, and 
caused those fretted arches to resound with 
shout and song. 

Young men were there, enterprising, full of 
hope, rejoicing in prospective opulence and 



260 PBACTICAL CHKISTIANITY. 

fame ; the sanguine student, with his high as- 
pirations ; the devotee of pleasure, with flush- 
ed cheek and lustrous eye ; the pure and the 
impure; the serene disciples of duty and the 
victims of the "fury passions," those "vultures 
of the mind." 

There was the maiden, in youth, graceful- 
ness, and beauty, with her unfurrowed brow 
glowing with the excitement of the evening 
song, of the heartfelt laugh, and of all those se- 
crets of the young heart's affections — of love, 
envy, jealousy, hope, and fear. There was 
fashion, elated with her new attire of Eastern 
jewels and of purple dye. There was the 
equipage of titled nobility and of hereditary 
wealth — young spendthrifts squandering -the 
fortunes which their fathers had amassed, and 
looking scornfully upon the prosperous and 
the ambitious emerging from obscurity. There 
were merchants accumulating wealth, and, in 
all the pageantry of ostentatious life, minister- 
ing to the proud desires of sons and daughters ; 
and there were other merchants, pale and care- 
worn, sleepless and appetiteless, in apprehen- 
sion of the approaching pay-day unprovided 
for. 

Idumea's far-famed capital contained just 
such hearts — each one a busy world in itself— 



THE VOICE OF PROPHECY. 261 

as are now in our cities and villages agitated 
with the hopes and fears, the joys and griefs, 
of this tumultuous life. 

But where now are Edom's youth and beau- 
ty ? Where now are her sanguine young men, 
her mirthful maidens, her nobles, her rulers; 
her shouting, joking, carousing populace? All, 
all are gone. The last death-groan has been 
heard. The last funeral procession has disap- 
peared. The very tombs Time has emptied. 
Not even a skull-bone, with eyeless sockets, 
can be found to tell that here was once a 
scheming, exulting, weeping man. The winds 
of twenty centuries have swept Edom's desert- 
ed streets and empty sepulchres, and the count- 
less multitudes who there once toiled, and 
loved, and hated, and died, have gone to their 
final account, and are now reaping their eter» 
nal recompense. 

But, reader, in narrating the history of 
Edom's departed inhabitants, what am I doing 
but announcing your doom and that of us all ? 
The lapse of a few years will consign each one 
of us to the same oblivion which has rolled 
over them. 

Young men and maidens, time is sweeping 
its dark billows over you. The very graves 
and tombs in which your bodies are to mould- 



262 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

er to the dust will soon perish. The prosper- 
ous man, and the care-worn, toil-worn son of 
disappointment and sorrow, will soon be as far 
removed from all that is adverse or propitious 
here below as are the former inmates of the 
mansions of Petra. The young mechanics, in- 
spired with the ardor which seems to inspire 
every thing in this energetic republic, will soon 
go to join their brethren who hewed the tem- 
ples and the chambers out of the eternal rocks 
of Idumea. "We shall soon all be gone. Ev- 
ery revolving year thins our numbers. Com- 
paratively frail as are our dwellings, long be- 
fore the hand of time shall tear them down, our 
death-groan will be heard, and the child of the 
stranger will play at our doors. Oh wonderful 
world — but a cradle and a grave ! 

" So live that, when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go, not like the quarry- slave, at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, 
And lies down to pleasant dreams." 



OLD TESTAMENT CHKISTIANS. 263 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 

The Babylonish Invasion. — The Captives. — Daniel.— The 
first Trial. — The Dream of Nebuchadnezzar. — Moral 
Courage of Daniel. — Belshazzar's Revel. — Daniel's Hero- 
ism. — Character of Daniel. — Noah. — Age of the World 
at his Birth. — His Trials. — His wonderful Firmness. — 
State of the World. — The Deluge. — New Temptations. — 
Noah's Fall. — Lessons taught. — Veracity of the Bible. — 
Probation. — Future Judgment. 

The Christian of the present day looks back, 
through a period of eighteen hundred years, to 
the time when our Savior made atonement for 
sin upon Calvary ; and at the sacramental table 
he is continually reminded of that body broken 
for sin, and of that blood shed for us. 

The believer, previous to the advent of Christ, 
looked forward through the centuries before 
him to the Savior, as we now look back through 
the centuries which have passed away ; and in 
the victims continually bleeding upon the al- 
tars of Israel, he was ever reminded of the Lamb 
of God who was to take away the sins of the 
world. He probably had not the clear concep- 



264 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

tion we now have of the atonement by the 
promised Messiah, for the fulfillment of proph- 
ecy always sheds much light upon its announce- 
ment. Still, the faith of the Old Testament 
saint was essentially the same with that of the 
more modern disciple of Jesus, and his life of 
piety, in its temptations, and struggles, and as- 
pirations, was identical. 

I wish now to present to the consideration 
of the reader the character of Daniel, as one of 
the Christians, if I may thus anticipate the name, 
of the Old Testament, and as one of the most 
noble of men, and the most worthy of imita- 
tion of any whose biography is to be found in 
either sacred or profane annals. 

About six hundred years before the birth 
of Christ, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 
marched with an invading army to Jerusalem, 
besieged the city, battered down its walls, and 
led away many thousands of its inhabitants 
into captivity. Chained two and two, this long 
train of weeping prisoners was driven at the 
sword's point over the mountains and through 
the valleys of Mesopotamia into hopeless slav- 
ery. Among these captives was Daniel, a 
young man about eighteen years of age. He 
was of noble, if not of royal birth, of very at- 
tractive personal appearance, of high intellec- 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 265 

tual endowments, and animated by inflexible 
integrity. 

Nebuchadnezzar gave orders that there should 
be selected from the prisoners a few young men, 
who, from their personal beauty and their in- 
telligence, were best fitted to be ornaments to 
his court, and they were to be fed with the 
most luxurious viands of meats and wines from 
the king's table. 

Daniel was among the first selected, and we 
immediately see a development of his decisive 
and upright character. He refuses to drink 
the king's wines and to pamper himself with 
the luxuries of the royal board, but persists in 
the frugal fare, of pulse to eat and water to 
drink, to which he had always accustomed him- 
self. When we consider his youth, and the 
strong temptation which surrounded him in 
this voluptuous court, we must regard this as 
a rare instance of self-control. 

Nebuchadnezzar, who, in the pride of his 
power, was totally unmindful of God, dreamed 
a dream which greatly troubled him. His 
wise men in vain endeavored to interpret it. 
Daniel was sent for. He entered the presence 
of this imperious despot, who, by one word, 
could cause his head to be severed from his 
body, and with a kind and modest, yet firm 



266 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

and fearless spirit, explained to him the dream, 
and announced to him the terrible decree of 
his offended Maker. 

" king,' 7 said Daniel, " this is the decree 
of the Most High. They shall drive thee from 
men, and thy dwelling-place shall be with the 
beasts of the field, and they shall make thee 
eat grass like oxen, and they shall wet thee 
with the dews of heaven, and seven times shall 
pass over thee till thou know that the Most 
High ruleth in the kingdom of men. Where- 
fore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto 
thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, 
and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the 
poor." 

Is there not here developed a noble spirit, 
when a young man and a captive ventures thus 
to address in warning one of the most capri- 
cious monarchs who was ever seated upon a 
throne? Virtue ever secures respect, and the 
dignity of Daniel's character was such as to 
command the homage even of this crowned 
despot. 

Nebuchadnezzar soon died, and was succeed- 
ed by Belshazzar, his son, a man utterly aban- 
doned to profligacy. Soon after his accession 
to the throne, he threw open the halls of his 
palace for one of those scenes of debauchery 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 267 

and carousal for which Babylon was far famed. 
From the illuminated apartments the uproar 
of intemperate festivity swelled upon the mid- 
night air, as the profligate revelers, male and 
female, of that corrupt court, fanned the flames 
of ungodly passions. 

In the midst of the uproar, when the song, 
and the wine, and the sensual dance had raised 
the excitement to the highest pitch, Belshazzar 
ordered the sacred goblets, which had been 
taken from God's temple in Jerusalem, to be 
brought to the feast, to be filled with intoxi- 
cating wine, and then he and his godless asso- 
ciates drank in derision of Jehovah, and in 
honor of their idol gods. 

Then God, in silent majesty, interposed. A 
supernatural hand appeared upon the wall. 
Every eye was arrested. Every cheek turned 
pale, as the blood rushed back upon the palpi- 
tating heart. Slowly and solemnly that awful 
hand, with its pointed finger, in letters of blaz- 
ing light, traced upon the wall the mysterious 
words, " Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" 

The silence of death succeeded the orgies of 
drunkenness and revelry. Sobered by terror, 
the guilty carousers dispersed, and Belshazzar 
was left alone, with his wives and his concu- 
bines, in an agony of fear. One after another 



268 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

the wise men were sent for to interpret these 
fearful symbols of an unknown doom. Their 
attempt to decipher them was, however, in vain. 

Daniel was then summoned — Daniel, who 
had kept aloof from all the godless merriment 
of this wicked court. Serene and fearless this 
prophet of God entered the presence of the 
king, and thus addressed him : 

" Thou, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thy 
heart, but hast lifted up thyself against the 
Lord of Heaven. And the God, in whose 
hands thy breath is, and whose are all thy 
ways, thou hast not glorified. This is the in- 
terpretation of the writing. c God hath num- 
bered thy kingdom and finished it. Thou art 
weighed in the balances and art found want- 
ing. Thy kingdom is divided and given to 
the Medes and Persians.' " 

That very night the armies of Darius made 
an irruption into the city. The streets of Bab- 
ylon ran red with blood, and the lifeless body 
of Belshazzar was left weltering in its gore. 

Darius now ascended the conquered throne, 
and, discerning the greatness of Daniel's char- 
acter, promoted him to the highest posts of of- 
fice and honor in the state. His elevation ex- 
cited the envy of others, and they plotted his 
ruin. Darius was persuaded to issue a decree 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 269 

that whosoever should ask a petition of any 
god or man for thirty days, save of the king, 
should be cast into the den of lions. They 
now felt certain of his destruction. They knew 
that Daniel would not live a day without pray- 
ing to the God of Heaven, and they knew that 
the laws of the Medes and Persians were abso- 
lutely unalterable. But look again at the calm, 
heroic integrity of this wonderful man. 

"Now when Daniel knew," it is recorded, 
"that the writing was signed, he went into his 
house ; and his windows being open in his 
chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon 
his knees three times a day, and prayed and 
gave thanks before his God, as he did afore- 
time. Then these men assembled, and found 
Daniel praying and making supplication before 
his God." 

There was in this act no spirit of defiance or 
bravado, but a calm decision of character, 
which commanded the admiration even of his 
enemies. Darius would gladly have saved him, 
but the law could not be disregarded. Daniel 
was cast into the lions' den. The king passed 
the night in sleeplessness and mental agony. 
Early in the morning he hastened to the den, 
and, with a loud yet trembling voice, cried out, 

" O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy 



270 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

God, whom thou servest continually, able to 
deliver thee from the lions?" 

To his great joy, he heard the voice of Dan- 
iel coming up from the darkness of the den, 
exclaiming, 

"0 King, my God hath sent his angel, and 
hath shut the lions' mouths that they have not 
hurt me." 

This exhibition of integrity and heroism in 
the character of Daniel, with the accompany- 
ing protection God had afforded him, so deep- 
ly impressed the mind of the king that he is- 
sued a decree, to all the people under his gov- 
ernment, declaring that the God of Daniel was 
the true God, and, as such, was forever to be 
worshiped. 

This is one of the most illustrious examples 
of Christian decision which has ever been re- 
corded. Oh, Daniel, Daniel, would that there 
were more to emulate thy virtues ! Tradition 
says that after these events Daniel continued, 
in comparative tranquillity, to discharge all the 
duties of his eventful life till he was ninety-one 
years of age. His noble spirit then ascended 
to join the sacramental host of God's elect. 

Such was Daniel — one of the greatest, most 
heroic, and best of men. In youth he was 
magnanimous, decided, and consistent in his 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 271 

piety. In old age lie was venerable in virtue, 
commanding the reverence even of the volup- 
tuous courtiers who trifled away their lives in 
the dissipation of a Persian court. 

We look upon him as a young man, and he 
has none of the frivolity of youth. The spark- 
ling wine of Nebuchadnezzar is presented to 
his lips in golden goblets, and he dashes the 
enchanted cup from him, and makes cold wa- 
ter his only beverage. Belshazzar's court re- 
sounds with wassail, and every thing that is 
fascinating in female beauty, in masculine wit, 
in costly adornment, lends its attraction to 
lure the hearts of the young and sanguine to 
godlessness and sin. 

And yet Daniel, nursed in the lap of afflu- 
ence, courted by the king to share the festivi- 
ties of his palace, qualified by his talents, his 
dignities, and his commanding person to move 
as one of the brightest and most envied in that 
gilded throng, resists the almost resistless temp- 
tation, and maintains his religious principles ir- 
reproachable. No blandishments can lure him 
into these dissolute scenes. Three times a day, 
morning, noon, and evening, he goes into his 
chamber, and, without ostentation and without 
disguise, seeks and obtains, through prayer, the 
strength he needs. The king upon his throne 



272 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

feels the reproof of his piety, and trembles be- 
fore bis youthful captive as be warns bim of 
bis sins. 

Is not tbis a noble character? Does it not 
command universal reverence? If you, read- 
er, are yielding to every trivial temptation, 
floating along upon the currents of the world 
wherever those currents may drift you, with- 
out moral courage to do what conscience and 
God's Word demand, how can you stand, in 
the day of judgment, by the side of Daniel? 
He could resist the fascinations of the most vo- 
luptuous court the world has ever known. He 
could go into the presence of the haughtiest of 
Persian and Babylonian monarchs, and warn 
them of their sins, and yet with a spirit so mod- 
est and a heart so replete with benevolence as 
to disarm them of their rage. And will you, 
reader, be like a bubble upon the wave, with 
no motion, no character of your own ? Will 
you glide through life as others may guide you, 
hoping for heaven without taking up your 
cross, hoping for victory without conflict? It 
is a vain hope, and terrible will be your disap- 
pointment. 

And you who have chosen Daniel's God for 
your God, and Daniel's religion for your re- 
ligion — you who, by the grace of God, have 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 273 

taken up the Cross of Christ, and separated 
yourselves from the frivolities of a sinful world 
— you who are striving to resist temptation, 
and to live for heaven, let the magnanimity, 
the heroism, the moral courage of Daniel ani- 
mate you. Live as he lived in your various 
spheres of duty, that you may die as he died, 
and may ascend to join him in that world where 
the spirits of the just are made perfect. 

Where now are those young men of Baby- 
lon who ridiculed the religion of Daniel, who 
sneered at those scruples of conscience which 
forbade him to quaff the wines and to join the 
revelers in the godless saloons of the palace ? 
One after another they have laid down upon a 
bed of pain, and struggled, and groaned, and 
died. Their bodies have returned to the dust, 
and their spirits have been arraigned before 
God's bar, and have heard their doom. 

And where now are those guilty, haughty 
maidens and dames, who in the midnight revels 
of Belshazzar's palace forgot God, and death, 
and judgment, and eternity? Their song is 
hushed. The worm of the grave has fed upon 
their once blooming cheeks. They threw away 
the precious moments of probation, and have 
long ago answered for their guilty lives at the 
bar of God. 

S 



274 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

And where, in a short half century from 
now, shall we all be ? There are fearful scenes 
close at hand through which we all must pass 
— death, the grave, the resurrection morning, 
the world's conflagration, the great white throne, 
the final trial, the verdict of condemnation or 
acquittal, .never to be reversed. Are you, read- 
er, prepared for these scenes? This is the one 
great question which probationary life, with all 
its joys and griefs, is to settle. The path of 
duty is plain, and salvation is sure to all who 
will walk in that path. 

From Daniel let us turn back to Noah. It 
is impossible to appreciate the character of this 
illustrious man without reflecting upon the 
state of the world at the time in which he 
lived. 

When Noah was fondled, an infant, upon 
his mother's knee, the world was a little more 
than a thousand years old. Adam had been 
dead about two hundred years. There were 
probably thousands then living who had seen 
Adam, and who had heard from his lips the 
story of Paradise and of the fall. The tradi- 
tion of a thousand years then might have been 
as distinct and vivid as the history of fifty 
years now. 

Adam lived until he was nearly a thousand 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 275 

years old. He was then the veteran and the 
venerable father of uncounted millions; and 
he looked back through the momentous events 
of nearly ten centuries, with a recollection of 
the past probably as clear and minute, as that 
with which he who now lives to the age of 
threescore years and ten retraces the scenes of 
his childhood and youth. 

From the hour of Adam's ejectment from 
Paradise mankind had been constantly and 
rapidly degenerating. The worship of God 
had become almost entirely neglected. Sin 
had attained such universal sway — rioting, and 
revelry, and the surrender to every passion 
had gained such entire dominion over a degen- 
erate race, that but one pious family was left 
on earth. 

Noah and his children were probably the 
butt of unmeasured ridicule. The spirit of ir- 
religion is essentially the same with all na- 
tions and at all times. Whether we go to the 
saloons of the Palais Eoyal, or to the court of 
Charles the Second, or to the savages of Su- 
matra, or to the world before the Flood, we find 
the habits of an ungodly life proceeding from 
and developing the same corrupt heart. 

As intemperance is the same vice whether 
caused by the most costly wines or the most 



276 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

poisonous drams ; as gaming is the same dead- 
ly passion whether practiced in illuminated 
halls and on polished marble, or with haggard 
beggary in the most gloomy cellars of degrada- 
tion, thus, all the world over, with the civil- 
ized man and the savage man, and in all ages 
of the world, before the Flood and since the 
Flood, the wickedness of man has assumed the 
same character, in the gratification of the same 
lusts and passions, only with different degrees 
of refinement in the external circumstances. 

The human heart was then, as now, the same 
busy world of hopes, disappointments, and fears. 
The halls of the wealthy resounded with mid- 
night carousals, and the abodes of the poor 
were made doubly wretched by low and grov- 
eling vice. With the exception of Noah and 
his family, the spirit of entire ungodliness so 
filled the world that God decided that the only 
remedy for this all but universal corruption 
was to bury the whole degenerate race in one 
common grave. 

When God informed Noah of this his inten- 
tion, Noah was six hundred years old. For 
six hundred years he had lived in the midst of 
all this iniquity, and yet had remained firm in 
his allegiance to God. The trials his faith 
must have encountered imagination can hard- 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 277 

ly conceive. He must have been, in strength 
of mind, in inflexibility of principle, in decision 
of character, in cool and unwavering courage, 
one of the most extraordinary men the world 
has ever produced. 

Out of the limits of his own family he could 
not find a single individual who would sympa- 
thize with him in his feelings — nay, probably 
but few who did not regard him as a hoary- 
headed fanatic, and who did not hate him for 
his refusal to unite in their dissipations. 

The situation of a Christian missionary alone 
among a nation of savages must be trying in 
the extreme; but it can bear no comparison 
with the conflict in which Noah passed prob- 
ably six hundred years. His neighbors must 
have resented the inflexibility of his principles 
as a living censure upon them. In all the 
haunts of vice and crime his name must have 
been buffeted about in low buffoonery and 
with vulgar jests ; and probably the rich and 
the powerful, with conscience-smitten hatred, 
endeavored to treat him, now with studied con- 
tempt, and now with all the allurements of flat- 
tery, and all the solicitations of seductive po- 
liteness. 

But neither blandishments nor frowns could 
seduce him. The united efforts of the whole 



278 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

human race could not shake his allegiance. 
Without a friend but in his own family ; with- 
out a supporter but his wife and his children, 
and they probably clinging to and hanging 
upon him for support ; with temptation in ev- 
ery form crowding upon him from every quar- 
ter, not only year after year, but century after 
century, Noah still stood firm in his integrity. 
He remained a just man, perfect in his genera- 
tion, and walked with God. 

Where is the Christian now who can feel 
that he could safely pass through such a trial 
of his Christian character ? Whose faith is so 
invincible that an opposing world, battling it 
for centuries, by stratagem, by storm, and by 
siege, could not vanquish it? There is a soli- 
tary grandeur, a majestic dignity, in the char- 
acter of this wonderful man, to which it is not 
easy to find a parallel. Milton presents his 
likeness in the seraph Abdiel : 

" Faithful found 
Among the faithless, faithful only he. 
Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ; 
Nor number nor example with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 
Though single." 

And when, in obedience to the divine com- 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 279 

mand, Noah laid the foundations of his ark, 
surrounded by the insults of blaspheming in- 
fidels — as, morning after morning, and year aft- 
er year, he went to his work, while riotous 
crowds gathered around in derision — -while the 
philosophers of his time reviled him in cutting 
sarcasm, and in Bacchanalian songs his name 
was loaded with every indignity, Noah retain- 
ed his constancy unshaken. 

And when the awful hour for God's venge- 
ance came, and the door of the ark was shut, 
and Noah, in his fragile retreat, heard the roar 
of the tempest mingling with the crash and the 
cry of a drowning world ; as his ark rolled in 
the surges of the swelling flood ; as, in mid- 
night darkness, for forty days and forty nights 
his awe-struck spirit listened to the chaotic 
uproar of nature in convulsions — the career- 
ing tempest, the rushing waves, the crumbling 
mountains, and the explosion of heaven's heav- 
iest thunders, what new inspirations of sub- 
limity must have been conveyed to his heart ! 
This was one of those scenes which no man, 
and, least of all, a man like Noah, could pass 
through without the expansion of every moral 
and intellectual power. 

Noah, when he entered the ark, was prob- 
ably the greatest and best man who had ever 



280 PRACTICAL CHKISTIANITY. 

lived on earth, Enoch perhaps not excepted; 
but when, after his five months' sojourn on the 
shoreless waters, he descended upon Mount Ar- 
arat, he must have made celestial acquisitions 
in every thing which could magnify greatness 
and goodness. As, from the summit of the 
mount, he looked down upon the solitary world, 
slumbering beneath the mists of the departing 
deluge — as, in the light of the awful present, 
he reflected upon the more awful past, he must 
have stood, like Ararat itself, firm in majesty 
of character, in inflexibility of will. 

Noah and his family descended to the plains 
of the reclaimed world. His old trials had now 
passed away, but new and unforeseen ones stole 
insidiously and fatally upon him. With gen- 
ial skies overarching him, and a virgin earth 
blooming in beauty around ; with a soft clime 
lulling to repose, and nr> enemies to molest and 
no strong temptations to resist, he gradually 
remitted his vigilance, and, in the bowers of 
his vineyard, in dalliance with that seductive 
enemy which, though it may sparkle in the 
cup, at last stingeth like a serpent and biteth 
like an adder, even Noah fell. 

Noah, the veteran of centuries — Noah, long 
tried and disciplined in the most severe school 
of self-control, after having successfully encoun- 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 281 

tered and triumphantly overcome all the al- 
lurements and menaces of a godless world — the 
venerable patriarch, who now for probably more 
than eight hundred years had, through every 
trial, sustained a character spotless and unsul- 
lied, fell, overcome and disgraced by strong 
drink. 

Oh, how must Satan have rejoiced in that 
sad hour which brought a stain upon the char- 
acter of our revered forefather which time can 
never efface ! With what fiend-like joy must 
he have exclaimed, 

"I have now found a seductive power so in- 
sidious in its movements that it is potent in 
the overthrow of resolution as firm and virtue 
as consolidated as that of Noah." 

And how diligently, and how successfully, 
from that hour to this, has Satan plied this in- 
strument of disgrace and ruin ! After such a 
warning, it is folly indeed for any one to pre- 
tend that he can, without danger, tamper with 
intoxicating drinks. Eeader, boast not of your 
power of resistance. Look at Noah — intoxi- 
cated Noah. He who had been tossed upon 
the billows of the Flood — he who had repelled 
temptation in every conceivable form for eight 
hundred years — he fails before the demon of 
strong drink, and lies upon the ground pros- 
trate in intoxication. 



282 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Oh Noah, Noah, venerable father of a new 
race, we love thee, we revere thee, we admire 
the virtues of thy wonderful character, and 
therefore we must weep over thy melancholy 
fall. Even the contemptuous profligate dares 
to deride thee, and the debauched Bacchanal, 
in the inebriation of wine and wassail, exults 
that the lustre of thy virtues is dimmed. 

And why did God permit the disgrace of his 
long-tried servant to be published to the world ? 
Why could he not allow the memory of this 
one fall to be effaced by the grief and tears of 
Noah's subsequent life ? The answer is plain. 
The veracity of the Bible is sustained by the 
spirit of inflexible truth which relates, with un- 
sparing fidelity, the faults as well as the virtues 
of its brightest characters. And, again, it was 
needful that, through all time, the fall of Noah 
should be held up as a warning against dalli- 
ance with that most perfidious foe of reputation 
and happiness. Let no one who has heard the 
story of Noah's fall have the presumption to 
say that he can safely tamper with intoxicating 
drinks. 

Noah survived the Flood three hundred and 
fifty years. In his boyhood he received in- 
struction from the contemporaries of Adam, 
and when he died nearly twenty-five hund- 



OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIANS. 283 

red years of this world's history had passed 
away. 

This brief biographical sketch of Noah and 
his times contains the germ of much instruc- 
tion. Most emphatically does it rebuke every 
weak spirit of conformity to the world. No 
matter what may be the temptations of one's 
business ; no matter how godless may be those 
by whom one is of necessity surrounded, it is 
hardly possible that any one should now en- 
counter the difficulties, temptations, and trials 
which Noah, for seven or eight hundred years, 
encountered and surmounted. 

During all these centuries, in the midst of 
universal corruption, Noah walked with God. 
He remained, during all this time, in his integ- 
rity, as inflexible as the mountain upon whose 
brow rested the ark. And will you, reader, 
be as fickle as the vapors which creep up the 
mountain sides, which are wreathed into every 
fantastic shape, and which are blown hither 
and thither by every shifting wind? Will 
you be the creature of circumstances, and, like 
melted wax, receive any impression which oth- 
ers may see fit to stamp upon you ? No ! have 
principles of your own, and dare to avow them ; 
and live up to them, though the whole world 
should combine in antagonism and in a chorus 



284 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

of derision. This alone is true manliness. In 
Noah's long-tried virtue you may find a pat- 
tern and encouragement. 

How often are the young dissuaded from a 
religious life because their associates revile, or, 
at least, disregard religion. Oh, humiliating 
confession ! Shrink from known duty and re- 
nounce your God because scoffers and blas- 
phemers deride and perish ! Will you allow 
such persons to create your character and de- 
cide your doom? Dare to be singular. Be 
true in your allegiance to God, though all man- 
kind should join in the revolt. Then, and then 
only, can you respect yourself; then, and then 
only, can you be translated to the abodes of 
the just made perfect. Then you can 

" Smile at Satan's rage, 
And face a frowning world." 

The history of Noah also demonstrates, as 
clearly as any truth can be demonstrated, that 
"after death cometh the judgment." If it be 
true that there is no punishment beyond the 
grave — that all men, as soon as they die, are 
received to heaven with the welcome, " Well 
done, good and faithful servant" — then piety 
must have been to Noah the greatest of calam- 
ities. While the godless and vile were, in a 
moment, swept into the perfect peace and joy 



OLD TESTAMENT CHEISTIANS. 285 

of heaven, Noah, because he was God's friend, 
was left to encounter the storms of the Deluge, 
and to struggle three hundred years more with 
the toils and griefs of life. While bold blas- 
phemers, too corrupt for amendment, and too 
bad to live, were translated to realms of the 
blessed, and were joining in the music of celestial 
choirs, Noah, because he was the child of God, 
was imprisoned in the tempest-tossed ark, and 
heard^ut the howlings of the storm. "While 
those who had surrendered themselves to utter 
profligacy were suddenly removed from all 
temptation, and were introduced to the pure 
companionship of angels and archangels around 
God's throne, Noah, whose character then was 
without a stain, was left in this world to en- 
counter temptations before which he was to 
fall, and which fall has left a stain upon his 
character, which for four thousand years has 
given exultation to the enemies of God, and 
which has caused God's friends to mourn. 

We see in this life but the beginnings of the 
divine government. The mystery, the appa- 
rent confusion in which all things are now in- 
volved, will be hereafter elucidated and recti- 
fied. Faith finds the solution of life's mystery 
in the declaration of Scripture, "It is appoint- 
ed unto all men once to die, and after this the 
judgment." 



286 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

We are also taught by the life of Noah that 
the trials and conflicts of life are in all ages es- 
sentially the same. The Christian is prepared 
for heaven by temptation and discipline. He 
who would be the child of God must perse- 
veringly press forward in the path of duty, re- 
membering that salvation is promised only to 
him who shall endure to the end. 

Eeader, thou art a child of immortality. 
Life is but a vapor. After a few days you will 
be in the spirit land. "Will you go there a 
Christian or a rejector of Christ ? Every other 
question is trivial indeed compared with this. 



THE NEW LIFE. 287 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NEW LIFE. 

Andrew Jackson. — His Excuses. — Confession to his Pastor. 
— The Protracted Meeting. — Conviction of Sin. — Ashamed 
of Jesus. — Conversion. — Its Results. — Louis Philippe. — 
Moral Training. — Madame de Genlis. — The Journal of 
Louis Philippe. — Practical Directions. — Conclusion. 

In conclusion of this treatise, let me draw 
the reader's attention to the experience of two 
men of modern times who have left the impress 
of their characters upon the two continents on 
which they severally resided. Andrew Jack- 
son was a man of marked character, by nature 
impulsive and passional in the extreme. Dur- 
ing much of his life his soul was overawed by 
the grandeur of the world of spirits, and he 
frankly acknowledged his self-condemnation in 
allowing the transient things of this world to 
detract so much from his attention to the world 
to come. The pastor of the church which Gen- 
eral Jackson attended while occupying the pres- 
idential chair in Washington informed the 
writer that he once called upon the President, 



288 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

in a time of unusual religious interest, to con- 
verse with him upon his personal interest in 
religion. 

"No man," said General Jackson, "can feel 
the importance of religion more deeply than I 
do. I have again and again resolved to attend 
to the subject, but the cares of my busy life 
have induced me to postpone it. I promised 
my wife that, so soon as the election was over, 
so that I should not be accused of becoming a 
Christian in order that I might get votes, I 
would attend to the salvation of my soul. But 
now my cabinet is in such a state of contention 
that I have no time to think of any thing else. 
I am, however, determined, in the first moments 
of leisure I can find, to endeavor to prepare to 
meet my God." 

It was the old excuse — old as the days of 
Felix: "Go thy way for this time; when I 
have a convenient season I will call for thee." 

In 1838 he wrote to a friend who had ad- 
dressed him upon this subject, "I would long 
since have made this solemn public dedication 
to Almighty God, but, knowing the wretched- 
ness of this world, and how prone many are to 
evil — that the scoffer of religion would have 
cried out, ' Hypocrisy ! he has joined the Church 
for political effect' — I thought it best to post- 



THE NEW LIFE. 289 

pone this public act until my retirement to the 
shades of private life, when no false imputa- 
tion could be made that might be injurious to 
religion." 

Still the old excuse, the heart deceiving it- 
self. No one better knew than General Jack- 
son that the hypocrite is the only one who 
needs fear the charge of hypocrisy. Sincerity 
has nothing to fear. 

After General Jackson retired from the pres- 
idential chair to the Hermitage, two or three 
years passed away, when enjoying these " shades 
of private life," during which, though ever self- 
condemned, he still found no leisure to attend 
to the conversion of his soul. 

Mrs. Jackson was a member of the little 
church which had been collected in the vicin- 
ity of the Hermitage, the President's rural resi- 
dence in Tennessee. A protracted meeting was 
held in this church. President Jackson attend- 
ed constantly these exercises, and his thought- 
ful, solemn air during all the services attract- 
ed general observation. The last sermon of the 
series was preached by Dr. Edgar, upon the 
"Interposition of Providence in the Affairs of 
Men." 

The life of General Jackson had been one of 
unusual adventure and peril. He had encoun- 
T 



290 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

tered all the dangers of war, both savage and 
civilized. He had, in numberless instances, 
been rescued from death, as it were, by mira- 
cle. The Spirit of God seemed to rest with 
peculiar power upon the soul of the hearer, as 
he followed, with absorbing interest, the words 
of the preacher. 

"How is it," exclaimed Dr. Edgar, "that a 
man can pass through such scenes unharmed, 
and not see the hand of God in his deliver- 
ance?' 7 

President Jackson, when the services were 
ended, with a peculiarly reflective and solemn 
expression of countenance, entered his carriage, 
and was riding homeward when he overtook 
Dr. Edgar. Here again we see a wonderful de- 
velopment of the moral cowardice of the hu- 
man heart. Nicodemus did not dare to go to 
Jesus by day, and stole along, through the 
shades of night, to seek a secret interview. 
Even General Jackson had not the moral cour- 
age to avow openly his interest in religion. 
He alighted from his carriage and requested 
Dr. Edgar to dismount for a moment from his 
horse, and then led the minister of Christ into 
a little grove by the road-side. Being thus out 
of the sight and hearing of others, he summon- 
ed courage to say, 



THE NEW LIFE. 291 

" Dr. Edgar, I want you to go home with me 
to-night." 

But Dr. Edgar had an engagement which 
he could not forego, and, notwithstanding the 
earnest and reiterated entreaties of President 
Jackson, he was compelled to decline. The 
President went home a convicted sinner, smit- 
ten by the Spirit of God. He immediately en- 
tered his chamber, and passed most of the night 
walking the floor in anguish of spirit and in 
prayer. The scenes of that night — its peni- 
tence, its supplications, its cries for mercy — are 
known only to his own soul and to God. 

With characteristic decision of character, his 
resolve was speedily formed. The next morn- 
ing was the Sabbath. In the little church at 
the Hermitage the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper was to be administered. The Presi- 
dent announced to his wife and family his full 
conviction that he had repented of his sins, 
cast himself upon the Savior, and had been ac- 
cepted of him. Assembling the elders of the 
church, he informed them of the new life upon 
which he believed that he had entered, and ex- 
pressed his desire, that very day, to make a pub- 
lic profession of his faith in Christ, and to re- 
ceive the memorials of his body broken for us ? 
and his blood shed for our sins. 



292 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

His case was a marked one — his character a 
marked one. He had already nearly approach- 
ed his threescore years and ten. No fears 
could be cherished that he would prove, fickle 
in his resolves, and, consequently, there was no 
hesitation in acceding to his request. 

It was, indeed, a solemn scene which was 
witnessed that day, in that humble church, al- 
most buried in the forests of Tennessee. The 
war-worn veteran, with bronzed face and frost- 
ed hair, knelt with the humility of a little 
child before the altar, in confession of utter 
guilt, in acceptance of pardon through faith in 
Christ, and was baptized in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 

His subsequent life was that of the Christian 
who is conscious that his past sins are all for- 
given, but who has yet many infirmities re- 
maining, the growth of years, against which he 
must incessantly struggle. Family prayers 
were at once established in his dwelling, which 
the President himself conducted, however nu- 
merous, or whatever the character of the guests 
who might be present. He was for the re- 
mainder of his life an active member of the 
Church, devoting his energies to promote its 
interests; and when chosen one of the deacons, 
declined only upon the ground that there were 



THE NEW LIFE. 293 

other brethren of far longer standing as Chris- 
tians, who were much more worthy of that po- 
sition of responsibility. 

Andrew Jackson, in his earlier years, was a 
very wicked man. He was awfully profane. 
He was a duelist. His own impetuous and un- 
governable will seemed to be his only law; 
but Christ, "who is able to save them to the 
uttermost that come unto God by him," re- 
ceived the penitent, even at the eleventh hour. 
We can not doubt that he has now been wash- 
ed from his sins in the Savior's blood, and that 
thus he has been presented "faultless before 
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.' 7 

Louis Philippe, late King of France, passed 
through a stormy life, crowded with tempta- 
tions, maintaining ever a character of moral 
purity rarely equaled. His father, the Duke 
of Orleans, was the richest man and one of the 
most illustrious nobles in Europe, being of royal 
blood. The duke, embracing the infidel phi- 
losophy then so much in vogue, as a natural 
consequence, surrendered himself to the most 
unrestrained indulgence in profligacy. His 
mother was a woman of sincere piety, and, with 
a broken heart, devoted herself to the educa- 
tion of her son. 

Madame de Genlis, a woman distinguished 



294 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

for her virtues and her high intellectual cul- 
ture, was selected as the private teacher of the 
young prince. With cheerfulness and resolu- 
tion, which indicated a noble nature, he pur- 
sued, under her guidance, a course of moral 
training which has given him a position in the 
history of the world among the purest and best 
of men. One of the modes by which Madame 
de Genlis taught her pupil to govern all his 
passions and to form his character upon the 
most exalted principles was carefully to review 
every night his actions during the day. To 
facilitate this self-examination, the following 
questions were written in his journal, which he 
every night read, and, with his pen, inscribed 
the answer to each one : 

1. Have I this day fulfilled all my duties to- 
ward God my Creator, and prayed to him with 
fervor and affection ? 

2. Have I listened with respect and attention 
to the instructions which have been given me 
to-day with regard to my Christian duties and 
reading works of piety ? 

3. Have I fulfilled all my duties this day 
toward those whom I ought to love most in 
the world, my father and my mother? 

4. Have I behaved with mildness and kind- 
ness toward my sister and my brothers ? 



THE NEW LIFE. 295 

5. Have I been docile, grateful, and attentive 
to my teachers ? 

6. Have I been perfectly sincere to-day, dis- 
obliging no one and speaking evil of no one ? 

7. Have I been as discreet, prudent, charita- 
ble, modest, and courageous as may be expected 
at my age? 

8. Have I shown no proof of that weakness 
and effeminacy which is so contemptible in a 
man? 

9. Have I done all the good I can ? 

10. Have I shown all the marks of atten- 
tion I ought to the persons, present or ab- 
sent, to whom I owe kindness, respect, or at- 
tention ? 

Every evening, before retiring to bed, the 
prince read these questions in the presence of 
his teacher, and to each one inscribed his an- 
swer. He then kneeled before God, and in 
prayer sought forgiveness for all his sins, and 
divine guidance. Such was the moral and re- 
ligious training of one of the most illustrious 
and wealthy of the nobles of France when six- 
teen years of age. Under such training his 
maturity of character was even then such that 
he was an active colonel in a regiment of dra- 
goons, and soon signalized himself in the ter- 
rible battles of Jemappes and Valmy. 



296 PEACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

Thousands of the young men of France who 
commenced life with him went down to ruin, 
swallowed up in the horrible vortex of French 
infidelity. During the Eevolution his private 
journal was seized by the government and 
published. In one passage he says, 

" Oh my mother, how I bless you for having 
preserved me from those vices and misfortunes 
into which so many young men fall, by inspir- 
ing me with that sense of religion which has 
been my whole support!" 

Some persons may think that such self-disci- 
pline would take away from true manliness of 
character. But just the reverse is true. There 
is nothing which inspires the soul with such 
energy as that moral courage which enables 
one to dare to do right. Lamartine says of 
this young man, 

" Louis Philippe had no youth. Education 
suppressed this age in the pupils of Madame 
de Grenlis. Eeflection, study, premeditation of 
every thought and act, replaced nature by study 
and instinct by will. At seventeen years of 
age the young prince had the maturity of ad- 
vanced years." 

Madame de Grenlis, in the following terms, 
speaks of her pupil, who then had the title of 
the Duke of Chartres. He did not attain the 



THE NEW LIFE. 297 

title of the Duke of Orleans until after the 
death of his father. 

" The Duke of Chartres was born with good 
inclinations, and he has now become intelligent 
and virtuous. Possessing none of the frivol- 
ities of the age, he disdains the puerilities 
which occupy the thoughts of so many young 
men of rank, such as fashions, dress, trinkets, 
follies of all kinds, and a desire for novelties. 
He has no passion for money ; he is disinterest- 
ed; despises glare, and is, consequently, truly 
noble." 

If the young man who reads these pages has 
an honest desire to correct his faults and to de- 
velop a truly noble character, which shall win 
the esteem of man and the favor of God, the 
efficient mode for accomplishing this is here 
distinctly marked out. Copy the above ques- 
tions, with such alterations and additions as 
may be suited to the peculiar temptations to 
which you may be exposed, and examine your- 
self every night, by reading them and answer- 
ing them, before you sleep. You will thus 
" grow in grace, and increase in the knowledge 
of the truth." If you will but persevere in 
such a course as this, you will surely find pen- 
itence and the Savior. Take, for instance, the 
following questions : 



298 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

1. Have I earnestly prayed to God to-day to 
forgive my sins, and to guide me to every 
duty? 

2. Have I, with prayer, read God's "Word, 
desiring only to know his will, that I might 
obey it ? 

3. Have I endeavored this day to abstain 
from every thing I thought to be wrong, and to 
do every thing which I thought to be right ? 

4. Am I now truly penitent for any failure 
in duty this day, and do I sincerely ask God's 
forgiveness ? 

Any one who can honestly at night answer 
these questions in the affirmative, and who 
perseveres in this course, is a Christian. It is 
not enough to say he will become a Christian ; 
but if he have adopted this new life so that he 
will persevere in it "to the end," he is already a 
Christian. This is the spirit of Christ. This 
is that newness of life which regeneration in- 
troduces. But perhaps some one says, "In 
this experience I find no reliance upon an 
atoning Savior — no clear view of the great doc- 
trines of grace." 

Our Lord has said, "If any man will do his 
will, he shall know of the doctrine." The way 
to please God is to begin with performing duty, 
not with studying doctrine. You may forever, 



THE NEW LIFE. 299 

like the lost spirits whom Milton so forcibly 
presents to us, 

"Reason high 
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate — 
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute — 
And find no end, in wandering mazes lost," 

and yet not make one single step in advance 
toward your heavenly home. Begin with 
duty — practical obedience — and you will have 
no trouble about doctrine. God, your Father, 
whose love you have sought, will be your 
teacher and guide. He will show you how sin 
has paralyzed your soul ; how utterly helpless 
you are of yourself; how dreadfully the lep- 
rosy of sin has corrupted your nature ; how 
essential it is that you should experience the 
washing of regeneration and the renewing of 
the Holy Ghost ; and he will lead you to that 
Savior whom his love has provided ; who " has 
borne your sins in his own body on the tree ;" 
who has said, 

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 

Eeader, would you go to heaven? You 
must then commence a Christian life. Strive 
to obey God's will so far as you can ascertain 
what his will is by the teachings of conscience 
and of God's Word. Let me, then, entreat of 



300 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

you, as an aid to the commencement of this 
Christian life, to prepare a series of questions 
adapted to your temptations and wants, and 
answer them every night before you sleep. 
These questions may be general or minute, ac- 
cording to your conviction of your own nat- 
ural tendencies to err. 

You may be constitutionally ambitious, or 
envious, or gloomy, or trifling, or selfish, or 
censorious, or morose, or irritable. Passion 
and appetite may have gained a perilous as- 
cendency over you. You may have indulged 
your tongue in habits of exaggeration and mis- 
representation until the vice has become a sec- 
ond nature. Euin will approach you on the 
side of your constitutional infirmities, and it is 
in that direction that you must throw up your 
intrenchments. 

The battle against sin is a stern one, far more 
arduous than any ever waged against earthly 
redoubt. Defeat is irretrievable and endless 
ruin ; victory secures for you honor, glory, and 
eternal life. 

Eeader, are you a Christian? Whatever 
your trials, be comforted. The storm of life 
will soon cease. The night of conflict and sor- 
row will soon pass away. Then the head and 
the heart shall ache no more. Heaven shall 



THE NEW LIFE. 301 

be your home ; angels your companions. Those 
loved ones, so dear to your heart, who have 
fallen asleep in Jesus, have but gone before 
you; they are waiting to receive you. The 
griefs which now pierce your heart shall but 
give new zest to future and endless joy. 

"Not first the glad and then the sorrowful, 
But first the sorrowful and then the glad. 
Tears for a day, for earth of tears is full, 
Then we forget that we were ever sad." 

Is there any unbeliever in Grod's Word who 
reads these pages, and says that all this is de- 
lusion? Cruel, cruel infidelity. Oh, rob us 
not of that only solace which remains for those 
crushed and broken hearts with which earth is 
filled! 

The mother cries in anguish over her dying 
child. Merciless infidelity says, " Shriek loud- 
er and louder. Your agony is but as the howl- 
ing of the wind. Your child has perished like 
the bubble that has burst. You shall never 
see it or hear from it again." 

The wife bends in agony over her dying hus- 
band ; receives his last kiss of more than earth- 
ly love, and his last words, " Dearest, we shall 
soon meet again." Cruel infidelity raises its 
demon laugh, and exclaims to the Christian 
mourner, comforted by this hope, "Fool, cast 



302 PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

away the delusion ! Your husband has passed 
into nothingness, like the pig in the sty, and 
to the same nothingness you will soon follow 
him." 

Oh Infidelity, thou art a fiend of darkness 
gloating over human misery ! Let every friend 
of humanity say, " Get thee behind me, Satan." 
Let us cling to our Bible, to our Savior, to our 
hopes of heaven. Here we find the only solace 
of earth's woes — and a solace often so rich and 
abounding ! Here we find triumph in death. 
Death do I say ? 

* c No ! no ! it is not dying 

To go unto our God ; 
This gloomy earth forsaking, 
Our journey homeward taking, 

Along the starry road." 



THE END. 



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Miss Sedgwick's Works. 



Miss Sedgwick has marked individuality ; she writes with a higher 
aim than merely to amuse. Indeed, the rare endowments of her mind 
depend in an unusual degree upon the moral qualities with which they 
are united for their value. Animated by a cheerful philosophy, and 
anxious to pour its sunshine into every place where there is lurking 
care or suffering, she selects for illustration the scenes of every-day ex- 
perience, paints them with exact fidelity, and seeks to diffuse over the 
mind a delicious serenity, and in the heart kind feelings and sympa- 
thies, and wise ambition, and steady hope. Her style is colloquial, pic- 
turesque, and marked by a facile grace, which is evidently a gift of na- 
ture. Her characters are nicely drawn and delicately contrasted ; her 
delineation of manners decidedly the best that have appeared. — Prose 
Writers of America, 



M 



EMOIR OF JOSEPH CURTIS. A Model 
Man. By the Author of " Married or Sin- 
gle ?" " Means and Ends/' "The Linwoods," 
"Hope Leslie," "Live and Let Live/' &c, &c. 
i6mo, Muslin, 50 cents. 



^/TARRIED OR SINGLE? By Miss Catha- 
rine M. Sedgwick, Author of " Hope Leslie," 
"The Linwoods," "Means and Ends," "Live 
and Let Live," &c, &c. 2 vols. i2mo, Mus- 
lin, $1 75. 



MISS SEDGWICK'S WORKS. 

IVE AND LET LIVE; or, Domestic Service 

Illustrated. By Miss C. M. Sedgwick, i 8mo, 
Muslin, 45 cents. 



T^JEANS AND ENDS; or, Self-training. By Miss 
C. M. Sedgwick. i8mo, Muslin, 45 cents. 



A LOVE TOKEN FOR CHILDREN. De- 
signed for Sunday-School Libraries. By Miss 
C. M. Sedgwick, i 8mo, Muslin, 45 cents. 



<HE POOR RICH MAN AND THE RICH 
POOR MAN. By Miss C. M. Sedgwick. 
i8mo, Muslin, 45 cents. 



OTORIES FOR YOUNG PERSONS. By Miss 
C. M. Sedgwick. i8mo, Muslin, 45 cents. 



\T7lLTON HARVEY, AND OTHER TALES. 
By Miss C. M. Sedgwick. \8mo, Muslin, 
45 cents. . 



MISS SEDGWICK'S WORKS. 3 

npHE LINWOODS. By Miss C. M. Sedgwick. 

2 vols. 121110, Muslin, $1 50. 



TTOPE LESLIE. By Miss C. M. Sedgwick. 

i2mo, Muslin, $1 25. 



ETTERS FROM ABROAD TO KINDRED 
' AT HOME. By Miss C. M. Sedgwick. 2 
vols. i2mo, Muslin, $1 90. 



BY MRS. SEDGWICK. 

TX7ALTER THORNLEY; or, A PEEP AT 
THE PAST. By Mrs. Sedgwick, Author 
of "Allen Prescott" and "Alida." i2mo, 
Muslin, $1 00. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, 

Franklin Square, N. Y. 



, Harper & Brothers will send either of the above 
Works by Mail, postage paid (for any distance in the 
United States under 3000 miles), on receipt of the 
Money. 



KIRWAN'S WORKS. 



Harper & Brothers will send either of the follow- 
ing Works by Mail, postage paid (for any distance in 
the United States under 3000 miles), on receipt of the 
Money. 



^HE HAPPY HOME. ByKiRWAN. Author of 
" Letters to Bishop Hughes," &c. 16nio, 
Muslin, 50 cents. 



T ETTERS TO BISHOP HUGHES. By Kir- 
wan. Revised and Enlarged Edition. 
12mo, Muslin, 75 cents. 



KIEWAN'S WORKS. 

T> OMANISM AT HOME. Letters to the Hon. 
Koger B. Taney, Chief-Justice of the United 
States. By Kjrwan. 12mo, Muslin, 75 
cents. 



A/TEN AND THINGS AS I SAW THEM IN 
EUROPE. By Kikwak. 12mo, Muslin, 
75 cents. 



pARISH AND OTHER PENCILINGS. By 
Kirwan. 12mo, Muslin, 75 cents. 



A MERICAN PRINCIPLES ON NATIONAL 
PROSPERITY. A Thanksgiving Sermon 
preached in the First Bresbyterian Church, 
Elizabethtown, November 23, 1854. By 
Ejrwan. 8vo, Paper, 10 cents. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, 

Franklin Square, N. Y. 



By Miss Muloch. 



The Novels, of which a reprint is now presented to the public, form 
one of the most admirable series of popular fiction that has recently 
been issued from the London press. They are marked by their faith- 
ful delineation of character, their naturalness and purity of sentiment, 
the dramatic interest of their plots, their beauty and force of expres- 
sion, and their elevated moral tone. No current Novels can be more 
highly recommended for the family library, while their brilliancy and 
vivacity will make them welcome to every reader of cultivated taste. 



A 



LIFE FOR A LIFE. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents; 

i2mo, Muslin, $1 00. 



JOHN HALIFAX, Gentleman. 8vo, Paper, 50 
cents ; Library Edition, 1 2mo, Muslin, $ 1 00. 



/^LIVE. 8vo, Paper, 25 



cents. 



qpHE OGILVIES. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. 



qpHE I 



HE HEAD OF THE FAMILY. 8vo, Paper, 

37J cents. 



A GATHA'S HUSBAND. 8vo, Paper, 37J 



cents. 



O 



UR YEAR : A Child's Book in Prose and Verse. 
Illustrated by Clarence Dobell. i6mo, Mus- 
lin. 



STUDIES FROM LIFE. izmo. 



MISS MULOCH'S NOVELS. 



A 



HERO, BREAD UPON THE WATERS, 
AND ALICE LEARMONT. One vol. 
izmo, Muslin, 50 cents; Paper, 38 cents. 



o cents. 



XJOTHINGNEW. Tales. 8 vo, Paper, 5 
A VILLION, and other Tales. 8vo, Paper, 50 



{.From the North British Review.'] 
MISS MULOCH'S NOVELS. 

She attempts to show how the trials, perplexities, joys, sorrows, la- 
bors, and successes of life, deepen or wither the character according to 
its inward bent. 

She cares to teach, not how dishonesty is always plunging men into 
infinitely more complicated external difficulties than it would in real 
life, but how any continued insincerity gradually darkens and corrupts 
the very life springs of the mind ; not how all events conspire to crush 
an unreal being who is to be the "example 1 ' of the story, but how ev- 
ery event, adverse or fortunate, tends to strengthen and expand a high 
mind, and to break the springs of a selfish or merely weak and self-in- 
indulgent nature. 

She does not limit herself to domestic conversations, and the mere 
shock of character on character ; she includes a large range of events 
— the influence of worldly successes and failures — the risks of commer- 
cial enterprise — the power of social position — in short, the various ele- 
ments of a wider economy that that generally admitted into a tale. 

She has a true respect for her work, and never permits herself to 
"make books," and yet she has evidently very great facility in making 
them. 

There are few writers who have exhibited a more marked progress, 
whether in freedom of touch or in depth of purpose, than the authoress 
of "The Ogilvies" and "John Halifax." 

Published by HARPER fr BROTHERS, 

Franklin Square, New York. 



Haepee & Beothees will send the above Works by Mail, postage 
paid, for any distance in the United States under 3000 miles), on receipt 
of the Money. 



Ijarper's Catalogue. 



A New Desceiptive Catalogue op Harper & Brothers* Publi- 
cations is now ready for distribution, and may be obtained gratuitously 
on application to the Publishers personally, or by letter inclosing Six 
Cents in postage stamps. The attention of gentlemen, in town or coun- 
try, designing to form Libraries or enrich their literary collections, is 
respectfully invited to this Catalogue, which will be found to comprise 
a large proportion of the standard and most esteemed works in English 
Literature — comprehending more than two thousand volumes — 
which are offered, in most instances, at less than one half the cost of 
similar productions in England. To Librarians and others connected 
with Colleges, Schools, &c, who may not have access to a reliable guide 
in forming the true estimate of literary productions, it is believed this 
Catalogue will prove especially valuable as a manual of reference. To 
prevent disappointment, it is suggested that, whenever books can not 
be obtained through any bookseller or local agent, applications with re- 
mittance should be addressed direct to the Publishers, which will meet 
with prompt attention. 



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